Letting them get on well ahead, he turned back and followed in their wake. That they were on their way to the grave, appeared evident: and the acute officer wondered why. A thought crossed him that possibly they might be about to take up what had been laid there. He went into the churchyard by the front gate, and made his way cautiously across it, keeping under the shadow of the grey church walls. Thence, stooping as he crossed the open ground, and dodging behind first one grave then another, he took up his former position against the high stone. They were at the grave now, and he began to deliberate whether, if his thought should prove correct, he should or should not officially interrupt proceedings. Getting his eyes to the open fretwork of the stone, Mr. Butterby looked out. And what he saw struck him with a surprise equal to any recently exhibited by Mr. Jones: he, the experienced police official, who knew the world so thoroughly as to be surprised at little or nothing. Standing at the head of the grave was a clergyman in his surplice and hood. Four men were grouped around him, one of whom held a lantern so that its light fell upon the clergyman's book. He was beginning to read the burial service. They stood with bowed heads, their hats off. The night had grown cold, but Mr. Butterby took off his. "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." The solemn words doubly solemn at that time and place, came distinctly to the official ears. Perhaps in all the times he had heard them during his whole life--many and many that it had been--they had never so impressed him. But habit is strong; and Mr. Butterby found himself taking observations ere the psalm had well commenced, even while he was noticing how heartily the alternate verses were given by the spectators. Three of them around the grave he recognized; the other one and the clergyman he did not. Of those three, one was a tall, fine man of forty years, Kene, the barrister; the next was a cousin of the deceased, Frank Greatorex, whom Mr. Butterby only knew by seeing him in the inquest-room, where he tendered some slight evidence; the third was a gentleman of the city. Neither the clergyman nor the one who held the light did Mr. Butterby remember to have seen before. The elder and other cousin of the deceased was not present, though Mr. Butterby looked for him; he had been the principal witness on the inquest--Mr. Bede Greatorex.