The woman lighted a lamp behind the shawl; then stood beside Miles, waiting. Nothing moved in the room, except twin shadows of the andirons fluttering on the wall, alert and capricious as a pair of fencers. In the passage Tony the sailor had paused silently, like a man drawn by strange impulse to the edge of a forbidden circle. Something approached, arrived, and culminated. The counterpane stirred. It was as though a broad and soothing wave had lifted the prostrate figure slightly, and passed, bearing away the spirit in one gentle, mighty undulation. The servant was the first to speak. “He was a good man,” she whispered. “It’s over now. He was a good man.” * * * * * Within two days Richard Bissant lay beside his brother, the Admiral, close beneath a yellow birch that rose in the highest field, a living monument, a landmark to ships below in the river. He had taught Miles to believe that the natural body is raised a spiritual body, and that this corruptible must put on incorruption. And though the grave, cut in frozen earth, and ringed about with shapeless banks of snow, seemed in those bleak surroundings to gain more than a brief victory, yet the survivor, feeling his sorrow as a man, could still dispute it like a man. One thing, in this time of perplexity, appeared beyond mistake; and that was Tony’s unwonted and unflagging kindness. Silent in his moccasins, like a sea-gaited Indian, he had come and gone about the house, bringing armfuls of firewood, helping Ella, tending the tower lamps. It was he who ran all errands to Kilmarnock, and shoveled the broad path from their door to the birch tree on the hill. Not only his activity, but his silence and retirement, had shown a right spirit, touched honestly. Miles, recalling his former thoughts, saw them as unjust. After all, the sailor, like the man who was now become a memory, had only kept his own counsel. “And I blamed him for that!” thought Miles, with remorse. And yet Tony’s presence was none the less disquieting. It had vexed and humbled, however needlessly, the closing days of a most honorable life; and Miles, though wishing to keep the man’s friendship, rebelled at thought of using him for profit. Right or wrong, it was very strongly in his mind that Tony must either leave or come to an explanation; for since that conference in the sick-room, the sailor’s standing, the whole arrangement, became more and more false and intolerable.