...of grief

We took our places in one of the front pews and soon the bell ceased to toll. The cessation of sound seemed to me like one of those strange silences that one notices in the summer, sitting in the woods, perhaps, when the birds suddenly stop singing and the sound of insects dies away and one strains one's ears after what is audible. I could think of nothing now but my grief for the dead man whose body, however unlike the living it might be, was soon to be taken wholly away from us. I turned my head involuntarily towards the Rector's wife and saw that she was looking at me. Her lips were tightly compressed. I had no idea of what thoughts were passing through her mind.

[The Aerodrome, Warner, R.]