What she did
not realize, however, was that she had made no response to his
apology, and they passed out of the cemetery gates, neither having
spoken again.
Bibbs was so content with the silence he did not know that it was
silence. The dusk, gathering in their small inclosure, was filled
with a rich presence for him; and presently it was so dark that
neither of the two could see the other, nor did even their garments
touch. But neither had any sense of being alone. The wheels creaked
steadily, rumbling presently on paved streets; there were the
sounds, as from a distance, of the plod-plod of the horses; and
sometimes the driver became audible, coughing asthmatically, or
saying, "You, JOE!" with a spiritless flap of the whip upon an
unresponsive back. Oblongs of light from the lamps at street-corners
came swimming into the interior of the coupe and, thinning rapidly to
lances, passed utterly, leaving greater darkness. And yet neither of
these two last attendants at Jim Sheridan's funeral broke the
silence.
It was Mary who preceived the strangeness of it--too late. Abruptly
she realized that for an indefinite interval she had been thinking of
her companion and not talking to him.
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