The cremation was a rite in its way, yet required only the saucer and two matches.  The letter, when well torn, flamed nicely, only a few scraps holding out against immediate combustion.  There was one little fragment on top, observable from the beginning; it read: 

     or night
       fferson 4127

These topmost bits refused to respond to poking with the burnt match, and finally demanded a new match all to themselves.  Within two minutes all were reduced to fine ashes, which the priestess of the rite duly took to the window, and scattered down into the “court.”  Then she washed her hands, put the saucer back under the mug, and raised another window to let out the smell.

This business completed, Carlisle glanced at her watch.  It was ten minutes past six, or nearly time to begin to dress.  The moment was an interlude in a day which had been full of exciting activity, keyed with the joy of journey’s end and lovers’ meeting.  An evening in similar titillating vein waited just ahead.  At this moment, Canning, bidden an revoir some ten minutes ago, was doubtless dressing at his club, seven blocks away.  Mrs. Heth, left to her own resources all afternoon, had fallen asleep in her chair, and still slept.  Even the maid Flora was absent, having been given the afternoon off, after unpacking two trunks, to “git to see” her uncle, a personage of authority who served his country well by sorting letters in the New York Post-Office.

Alone in the hotel bedroom, Carlisle looked in the mirror of the mahoganized “dresser,” occupied in taking off her veil and hat, and thought that Flora ought to be coming back now.  Then she sniffed a little and was aware of a memorial smell from the rite.  After that her mind appeared to float away for a time, and when she caught up with it again, it was thinking: 

Nothing so much could really have happened, if I had told.

It was an academic thought for a mind which must have known very well that everything was settled now.  Carlisle, assuming charge herself, promptly turned it out.  Having put her hat on the bed, she began to busy herself with preparations for the evening.  Flora lingering at her avuncular pleasures, she herself went to the closet and took down a dress.  A capable girl she was, who could easily get out her own clothes when absolutely necessary.

Canning was dining the two ladies at the resplendent establishment of his choice, at seven-thirty o’clock; he was due to return in an hour now.  All day he had been in attendance, and all day he had been the very prince of lovers.  Having lunched with Mrs. Heth and Carlisle at their hotel, he and his betrothed had spent the whole afternoon together jogging about the May-time park in a hansom-cab,—­such was her whim,—­with late tea at the Inn of renown upon the Drive:  and through all, such talk as sped the hours on wings.  How fascinating he was, she seemed to have forgotten, in these days of absence and worry.  And how strong and all-conquering!—­a man of such natural lordliness of mien that cabmen and policemen, proud men and strangers as they were, spoke to him with something akin to respect.