Why had the young man drawn her profile? What real position did this woman occupy in that strange family? As to the latter he could not determine; he would not try. He had nothing to do with the domestic facts of life. There had been a deep significance in the first scene at the bedside. And yet "Mother" under the circumstances might after all mean nothing. He had heard that southern children were taught this, or something like it, by all black nurses. But as to the profile, there was a phenomenon possibly, and science was his life. The young man had drawn the profile because it was the first time he had within his recollections ever seen it. In the analysis of his dreams that profile might be of momentous importance. The little group that had gathered followed the coffin to a clump of trees not far removed. The men who bore it lowered it at once to the open grave. An old negro preacher lifted his voice in a homely prayer, the women sang a weird hymn, and then they filled up the cavity. The face and form of Rita were removed from human vision, but only the face and form. For one of that concourse, the young white man who had come bareheaded to stand calm and silent at the foot of the grave, she lived clear and distinct upon the hidden film of memory. Virdow was not deceived by that calmness; he knew and feared the reaction which was inevitable. From time to time during the evening he had gone silently to the wing-room and to the outer yard to gaze in upon his charge. Always he found him calm and rational. He could not understand it. Then, disturbed by the suspense of Edward's absence, and the uncertainty of his fate, he would forget himself and surroundings in contemplation of the possible disasters of an American duel--exaggerated accounts of which dwelt in his memory. He resolved to remain up until the crisis came. It was midnight when, for the twentieth time, probably, he went to look in upon Gerald. The wing-room, the glass-room, the little house deprived by death of its occupant, the outer premises--he searched them all in vain. Greatly troubled, he stood revolving the new perplexity in his mind when his eye caught in the faint glow of the east, where the moon was beginning to show its approach, the outline of the cemetery clump of trees. It flashed upon him then that, drawn by the power of association, the young man might have wandered off to pay a visit to the grave of his friend. He turned his own feet in the same direction, and approached the spot. The grave had been dug under the wide-spread limbs of cedar, and there he found the object of his quest. Slowly the moon rose above the level field beyond, outlining a form. In his dressing gown stood Gerald, with folded arms, his long hair falling upon his shoulders, lost in deep thought.