President Roosevelt, his Cabinet and friends occupied the fourth car, and transacted such business as could not be postponed. Between them and Mrs. McKinley’s coach was a combination diner and buffet car; and there the new President went for luncheon at noon. The women who attended Mrs. McKinley brought refreshments to her, and urged her to eat; but she could not. The forward car, a “combination,” was occupied by the members of the escort party and a number of correspondents, while in the compartment immediately back of the engine such baggage as was necessary for the party’s immediate use was stored. The last car on the train was an observation car, in the center of which the casket was placed. About it was grouped the sentinels from the army and the navy—whose guardian care was no longer needed; and beside it reposed masses of floral offerings. The car was so arranged that a view of the interior could be had by the crowds that were passed. At Baltimore the train was reversed, the catafalque car being placed in front, while the others occupied their relative positions in the rear. Darkness came shortly after the train left Baltimore, and the lights of farm houses in the country still revealed the waiting watchers—always standing, always uncovered, always mutely joining in the universal expression of grief. Night enveloped the Capital City in its mighty pall as the funeral procession ended. The train pulled into the depot at 8:38. The run from Buffalo had been made in an average of thirty-five miles an hour. The President and his friends alighted. Mrs. McKinley was assisted to her carriage. The stalwart soldiers and sailors gently lifted the casket from its place in the car and carried it through a waiting, silent, tearful crowd, to the hearse at the gates, and it was driven slowly along the streets to the White House. It was a sad home-coming. Just two weeks before President McKinley, full of life and crowned with all the honors that a successful career could earn, happy in the love of his people and the respect of the world, had gone to visit the Buffalo Exposition; to lend some measure of encouragement to that enterprise, and to see the marvels that had been there assembled. In the midst of them he had fallen. And here, at the end of a fortnight, in the darkness of an autumn night, in the silence of an inexpressible sorrow, his hearse was rolling dully along the avenue, and only the prayers and eulogies and lying in state separated all that was mortal of William McKinley from the unending rest of the grave. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE LAST NIGHT IN THE WHITE HOUSE. Borne upon the shoulders of stalwart representatives of the army and navy, of which he had been Commander-in-Chief for more than four years, all that was mortal of William McKinley, late President of the United States, was returned to the capital of the nation.