The soft earth beneath the window, the window once of fair prospect, was many-tracked by the feet of indecisive agony, as if the old man had shambled there, debating with his despair. But that he had made up his mind early in the evening was now clear to Milford. Perhaps the sight of the window through which he had looked out upon the leafless tree, the hope that he had seen hanging from its branches--perhaps his nearness to the sleeping household had caused him for a brief time to waver, but not for long. Milford recalled his classification of the poets, "Wordsworth, the lake." And his cry out in the dark, "Wordsworth! Wordsworth!" His fishing-rod argued that he strove to hide the appearance of self-destruction, but in the iced water he forgot his last thin pretense of caution, shouting as the excited spectator believed, "Warmer than the world!" The awful agony of the first clod, falling with hollow sound, the tearing rush of memory, the gasp of the heart, missing a beat! The widow fell senseless at the grave, and they took her away, the daughter sobbing over her. Yes, they all took him seriously now. "It does seem that he could have done something," said Steve Hardy, waiting for Milford outside the graveyard. "He did," Milford replied. "I mean--you know what I mean. I don't see how a man can give up that way. Seems to me like I'd fight till the last." "Yes, but that man was more of a hero than you could ever be. He saw that he could not keep up his insurance, and he decided that it was better to die." "I understand that the widow'll get ten thousand." "Yes, the community is very quick to understand that point." "I was talkin' to a lawyer, and he said that they couldn't keep her out of the money. The courts have decided that the money in such cases has to be paid." "He understood it, too, or he wouldn't have drowned himself." "I guess so. Well, you never can tell what a man may do. You form your idea of him and find out afterwards that it was all wrong. But it would be a cold day when I'd kill myself for anybody. I hear you're goin' to have a sale at your house." "Yes, I don't care to stay here any longer." "Every man to his own taste, but you can't find a puttier country. I guess this community right here ships more milk that any section along the road. But they say that when a man once lives away out in the West he always has a likin' for it. Well, I'll be over there on the day of the sale." Milford sold all of his belongings, with the exception of some tools, a cow, and a loft full of cattle-feed which he gave to the hired man. He was not quite ready to go, but would remain a few days and perhaps a week longer. He was waiting for a letter, and he searched the newspapers every day. Mrs. Stuvic demanded that he should spend the remaining time at her house. She was sorry to lose him. She had confessed that she was half afraid of him, and this feeling had endeared him to her.