The living, in the presence of death, feel that the whole air is full of something new and terrible. A greater sensitiveness perceives an inexplicable feeling of something present, or of some horrible thing happening invisibly. Bertha walked to her husband’s room and for a while dared not enter. At last she opened the door, she lit the candles on the chimney-piece and on the dressing-table, then went to the bed. Edward was lying on his back, with a handkerchief bound round his jaw to hold it up, his hands crossed in front. Bertha stood in front of the corpse and looked. The impression of the young man passed away, and she saw him as in truth he was, stout, red-faced, with the venules of his cheeks standing out distinctly in a purple network; the sides of his face were prominent as of late years they had become; and he had little side whiskers. His skin was lined already and rough, the hair over the front of his head was scanty, and the scalp was visible, shiny and white. The hands which once had delighted her by their strength, so that she compared them with the porphyry hands of an unfinished statue, now were repellent in their coarseness. For a long time their touch had a little disgusted her. This was the image Bertha wished to impress upon her mind. It was a stranger lying dead before her, a man to whom she was indifferent. At last turning away, she went out and returned to her own room. Three days later was the funeral. All the morning wreaths and crosses of beautiful flowers had poured in, and now there was a crowd in the drive in front of Court Leys. The Blackstable Freemasons (Lodge No. 31,899), of which Edward at his death was Worshipful Master, had signified their intention of attending, and lined the road, two and two, in white gloves and aprons. There were likewise representatives of the Tercanbury Lodge (4169), of the Provincial Grand Lodge, the Mark Masons, and the Knights Templars. The Blackstable Unionist Association sent one hundred Conservatives, who walked two and two after the Freemasons. There were a few words as to precedence between Brother G. W. Hancock (P.W.M.), who led the Blackstable Lodge (31,899), and Mr. Atthill Bacot, who marched at the head of the politicians; but it was finally settled in favour of the Lodge, as the older established body. Then came the members of the Local District Council, of which Edward had been chairman, and after these the carriages of the gentry. Mrs. Mayston Ryle sent a landau and pair, but Mrs. Branderton, the Molsons, and the rest, only sent broughams. It needed a prodigious amount of generalship to marshal these forces, and Arthur Branderton lost his temper because the Conservatives would start before they were wanted to. “Ah,” said Brother A. W. Rogers (the landlord of the _Pig and Whistle_), “they want Craddock here now. He was the best organiser I’ve ever seen; he’d have got the procession into working order and the funeral over by this time.”