The squire crossed the room slowly and laid back the cover from Cassie's face; then both men stood still, looking first at the figure on the bed, then at each other. Cassie had always been beautiful, but now an unearthly loveliness lighted her face. Her dark hair was braided high on her head; her broad forehead with its beautifully arched brows seemed to shed an actual radiance. David had never observed his mother's beauty, but now, in the last few months, he had wakened to aspects to which he had been blind. He had seen beautiful women; he could compare them with his mother as she lay before him. He looked at her hands, still shapely in spite of the hard toil of her life, folded now across her quiet breast; he noted the shape of her forehead; he saw the smile with which she seemed to be contemplating some secret and lovely thing. Upon the squire the sight of Cassie made a deep impression. Tears came into his eyes, and he shook his head as though before him lay an unfathomable mystery. He felt about her as he might have felt about some young person cut off in youth. Here was extraordinary promise, here was pitiful blight. The squire had observed human nature in many unusual and pathetic situations, here was the most pathetic of all. The Hartmans could not be understood. Then the squire, glancing at David, went out and closed the door and left him with his mother. In dumb confusion, David stood by the great bed. More vaguely, the squire's puzzle was his also. His mother had had an empty life--it should not have been empty. He could not understand her, he could not understand his father. They had put him away from them. The old resentful, heart-breaking misery came back; he had no people, he had no one who loved him. Then resentment faded and grief filled him. Like a lover, refused, rejected, he knelt down beside the great bed. "Oh, mother!" cried David, again and again. "Oh, mother, mother!" Then the old, unanswered, unanswerable cry, "Speak to me!" From the great bed came no sign. David rose presently and laid back the cover over the smiling lips and turned the light low and went down to join the squire. Composedly he made plans with him for the funeral. The squire announced that he and Bevy had come to take up their abode unless David wished to be alone. The squire looked at David, startled. In the last year David had grown more than ever like his parents; he had his mother's features and his father's deep gray eyes and thickly curling hair. "When you are through your school, you must settle down in Millerstown," said the squire. "There ought to be little folks here in this house." David's heart leaped, then sank back to its place. He had cured himself of Katy Gaumer; such flashes were only meaningless recollections of past habit. "I am thinking of studying law," he told the squire. "That will keep me in school three years more. And then I couldn't practice law in Millerstown."