That this was true was proven by his conduct during the time in which it was liable to public comment. Until night he was not seen, and then he came in at a late hour and, walking in silence through the roomful of watchers, shut himself up in an inner chamber and remained there alone. "He's takin' it mighty hard," they said. "Seems like it's kinder onsettled his mind. He hain't never looked at the child once." He did not appear at all the next day until all was ready and Tom De Willoughby went to him. He found him lying on the bed, his haggard face turned towards the window. He did not move until Tom touched him on the shoulder. "If you want to see her----" he said. He started and shuddered. "What, so soon?" he said. "So soon?" "Now," Tom answered. "Get up and come with me." He obeyed, following him mechanically, but when they reached the door, Tom stopped him. "I've told them a story that suits well enough," he said. "I've told them that you're poor and have no friends, and can't care for the child, and I've a fancy for keeping it. The mother is to lie out here on the hillside until you can afford to find a better place for her--perhaps at your own home. I've told the tale my own way. I'm not much of a hand at that kind of thing, but it'll do. I've asked you no questions." "No," said the man, drearily. "You've asked me no questions." Then they went together into the other room. There were twenty or thirty people in it, or standing about the door. It was like all mountain funerals, but for an air of desolateness even deeper than usual. The slender pine coffin was supported upon two chairs in the middle of the room, and the women stood or sat about, the more easily moved weeping a little under the shadow of their calico sunbonnets. The men leaned against the door-posts, or sat on the wooden steps, bare-headed, silent, and rather restless. When Tom led his charge into the apartment, there was a slight stir and moving back of chairs to make way for him. He made his way straight to the coffin. When he reached it and looked down, he started. Perhaps the sight of the white dress with its simple girlish frills and homelike prettiness brought back to him some memory of happier days when he had seen it worn before. The pure, childlike face had settled into utter calm, and across the breast and in the hands were long, slender branches of the thickly flowering wild white clematis. Half an hour before Tom had gone into the woods and returned with these branches, which he gave to one of the younger women. "Put them on her," he said, awkwardly; "there ought to be some flowers about her." For a few moments there reigned in the room a dead silence. All eyes were fixed upon the man who stood at the coffin side. He simply looked down at the fair dead face. He bestowed no caresses upon it, and shed no tears, though now and then there was to be seen a muscular contraction of his throat.