It all seemed horribly farcical to him. The dead man in his casket had no personality for him; the sniffs of Mrs. Slocum, her boarder with the hat, assumed, in his eyes, the character of a "Punch and Judy" show. But along with that feeling came the realization of a most terrible pathos. He felt a sort of pity for the dead man, whose very personality had become nothing to him, and the pity was the greater because of that. It became a pity for the very scheme of things, for man in the abstract, born perhaps, through no fault of his own, to sin and misery, both miserable and causing misery throughout his life, and then to end in the grave, and vanish from the sight and minds of other men. He felt that it would not be so sad if it were sadder, if Mrs. Slocum's sniffs had come from her heart, and not from her sentimentality. He felt that a funeral where love is not is the most mournful function on earth. Then, too, he felt a great anxiety for Doctor Gordon, who sat shrugged up in his gray overcoat, with his gray grizzle of beard meeting the collar, and his forehead heavily corrugated over pent and gloomy eyes. He was heartily glad when the service was over, when the casket had been lowered into the grave, when the village hearse had turned off into a street, the horse going at a sharp trot, and he and Doctor Gordon were left alone. He drove. Gordon sat hunched into a corner of the buggy, as he had sat in the corner of the hotel parlor. James hesitated about saying anything, but finally he spoke, he felt foolishly enough, although he meant the words to be comforting. "You did all you could to save his life," he said. Gordon made no reply. When they reached the house, Clemency's head disappeared from the window, where she had evidently been watching. She met them at the office door, with an odd, shocked, inquiring expression on her little face. James kissed her furtively, while Gordon's back was turned, as he divested himself of his gray coat. "Dinner is nearly ready," Clemency said in an agitated voice. "How is she?" asked Gordon, then before she had time to reply, he added almost roughly, "What on earth are you fretting about?" "I am not fretting," Clemency answered in a weak little voice. "There is nothing in all this for you to concern yourself with. Put it out of your head!" "Yes, Uncle Tom." "How is she?" "She has been asleep all the afternoon." "She has not had another attack?" "No, Uncle Tom." Then the dinner-bell rang.