The Great Victorian Age was laid to rest.

The great pageant of mortality had wound along the officially-appointed route, under the cold grey sky, an apparently endless, slowly-marching column of Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry of the Line, progressing pace by pace between the immovable barriers of great-coated soldiers, and the surging, restless sea of black-clad men and women pent up on either hand behind them. The long rolling of muffled drums, and the dull boom of cannon; the baring of men's heads; the wail of the Funeral March, the flash of suddenly whitened faces turned one way to greet Her as She passed, borne to Her rest upon a gun-carriage, as fitting an aged warrior Queen; drawn to her wedded couch within the tomb by the willing, faithful hands of her sons of the twin Services, who shall forget, that heard and witnessed?

Who shall forget?

The Royal Standard draped across the satin-white, gold-fringed pall, where on rich crimson cushions rested the Three Emblems of Sovereignty. The dignified, kingly figure of a man, no longer young, bowed with sorrow under the Imperial heritage, preceding the splendid sombre company of crowned heads; the blaze of uniforms and orders, the clank of sword and bridle, the potent ring of steel on steel, the sumptuously-trapped, shining horses pacing slowly, drawing the mourning-carriages of State, their closed windows, frosted with chilly fog, yielding scant glimpses of well-known faces. One most beloved, most lovely, and no less so in sorrow than in joy. "Did you see her?" the women asked of one another, as the pageant passed and vanished, and one good soul, all breathless from the crush, gasped as she straightened her battered bonnet and twitched her trodden skirt: "There never was a better than the blessed soul that's gone, but there couldn't be a sweeter nor a beautifuller Queen than the one she leaves behind her!"

The last wail of the Funeral March having died away into silence, the last cannon-shot gone booming out, down came the foggy dusk on bereaved London. A chill rime settled on the swaying laurel wreaths, and on the folds of the fluttering purple draperies at the close of the dismal day. The shops were shut, and many of the restaurants, but the windows of the Clubs gleamed radiantly down Piccadilly, and every refreshment-bar and public-house was thronged to bursting. Noon changed to evening, and evening lengthened into night, and the pavements began to be crowded. The Flesh Bazaar was being held in Piccadilly, and all up Regent Street and all down the Haymarket the chaffering went on for bodies and for souls.

A deadly physical and mental lassitude weighed on Saxham. His soul was sick with the long, hopeless struggle. He would end it. He would die, and take away the shadow from Lynette's pure life, and leave her free. His will devised to her everything he possessed, leaving her untrammelled. Let her learn to love once more, let her marry a better man, and be happy in her husband and her children....

*****

He turned in at one of the chemist's shops. One or two gaudily-dressed, haggard women were at the distant end of the counter, in conference with an assistant. Saxham spoke to the chemist, a grey-whiskered, fatherly individual, who listened, bending his sleek bald head. The chemist bowed, but as he had not the honour of knowing his customer, would the gentleman oblige by signing the poison-book, in compliance with Schedule F of the Pharmacy Act, 1868?

Saxham nodded. The chemist produced the register, and opened it on the counter before Saxham, and supplied him with pen and ink. Then he found that he had business at the other end of the shop, and when he returned he smartly closed the book, without even satisfying himself whether the client had written down his name and address, or merely pretended to. Then he filled a two-ounce vial with the fragrant, deadly acid, and put on a yellow label that named the poison, but not the vendor, and stoppered and capsuled, and sealed, and made it into a neat little parcel, and Saxham paid, and put the parcel in his inner breast-pocket, and turned to leave the shop.

It was crowded now; the roaring business of the little hours was in full swing. The three assistants ran about like busy ants; the chemist joined his merry men at the game of making money, serving alcoholic liquors, mixing pick-me-ups, dispensing little bottles of tabloids and little boxes of jujubes, taking cash and giving change.

The crush was terrific. Saxham, his hat pulled low over his broad brows, his great chest stemming the tide of humanity that incessantly rolled over the threshold, was slowly making his way to the door, when he felt the arresting touch of a hand upon his arm.

The owner of the hand belonged, as ninety per cent. of the women in the place belonged, to FranÇois Villon's liberal sisterhood. Something in the pale square face and massive shoulders had attracted her vagrant fancy. She had quitted her companions—two gaily-dressed, be-rouged women and a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, moustached young German, whose stripy tweeds, vociferously-patterned linen, necktie of too obvious pattern, and high-crowned bowler hat, advertised the Berlin tailor and haberdasher and hatter at their customer's expense, as Saxham went by. Now she looked up into the strange, sorrowful eyes that were shaded by his tilted hat-brim, and twined her thin hands caressingly about his arm, asking:

"Why do you look so queer, dear? Is anything wrong?—excuse me asking—or is it the Funeral has given you the blue hump? It did me! I've not felt so bad since mother——" She broke off. Then as a shrill peal of laughter from one of her female companions followed a comment made by the other—"One of those ..."—she jerked her chin contemptuously, tossing an unprintable epithet in the direction of her lady friends—"says you're ugly. I don't think so. I like your face!" Her own was cruelly, terribly young, even under the white cream of zinc, the rouge, and the rice-powder. "Were you looking for a friend, dear?" she asked tightening the clasp of her thin, feverish hands.

"Yes," said Saxham, with a curious smile that made no illumination in his sombre face. "For Death! There is no better friend than Death, my child, either for you or me!"

Gently he unloosed the burning hands that clutched him, and turned and pushed his way out through the noisy, raving, chaffering, patchouli-scented crowd, and was gone, swallowed up in the roaring torrent of humanity that foamed down Piccadilly, leaving her frozen and stricken and staring.