" "My brother,"
she says, "had gone out, and I waited alone for him. Suddenly I fancied
I heard footsteps in the passage and stopping at the door of the room
where I was reading. I felt drops of cold sweat on my forehead. I was
afraid, yet I knew that no one was about at that time of the night. The
door opened slowly, and I felt the impression of some one looking at me.
I dared not raise my eyes. The footsteps seemed to approach. In a fit
of fear I looked up and saw Sir Richard standing before me. He started,
waved his hand and disappeared. Early in the morning came a ring at the
bell. I jumped out of bed and burst into tears as I said, 'This is to
tell us that Sir Richard is dead.' At that moment the maid brought in
the letter for my brother from Dr. Baker. I ran with it into his room.
'Albert, Albert,' I cried, 'Sir Richard is dead.' He opened the letter.
It was only too true."

The same morning, Mr. P. P. Cautley, the Vice Consul, was called up to
the house.

The undertaker, who was already there, asked in Mr. Cautley's presence
to what religion Sir Richard belonged.

Turning to Mr. Cautley, Lady Burton asked: "What religion shall I say?"

"Tell him Sir Richard's true religion," replied Mr. Cautley. [636]

She then said, "Catholic."

"But!" interjected Mr. Cautley.

"YES," followed Lady Burton, "he was a Catholic."

Lady Burton still nursed the hope that Sir Richard was not quite dead.
There was life in the brain, she persisted in saying. Would he revive?
"For forty-eight hours," she tells us, "she knelt watching him." She
could not shed a tear. Then she "had the ulnar nerve opened and strong
electricity applied to make sure of his death."

Some months after, when her mind had regained its equilibrium, she
observed to Major St. George Burton. [637] "To a Protestant, Dick's
reception into the Holy Church must seem meaningless and void. He was
dead before extreme unction was administered; and my sole idea was to
satisfy myself that he and I would be buried according to the Catholic
rites and lie together above ground in the Catholic cemetery. He was not
strictly received, for he was dead, and the formula Si es capax, &c.,
saved the priest's face and satisfied the church." When mortification
began to set in, the body, which was found to be covered with scars, the
witnesses of a hundred fights, was embalmed, laid out in uniform, and
surrounded with candles and wreaths. "He looked so sweet," says Lady
Burton, "