"He found me. I have read in his own hand-writing _how_ he found me, and all the history of his ruined life. He has stood at my window with my life in his hands, and at the last moment--God alone knows why, perhaps for the sake of the woman he loved and her child--he has spared my life. I have seen the print of his feet where he must have stood outside in the bitter cold looking in upon my warmth and comfort. I have found the very weapon with which he would have taken my life lying at my door where he must have flung it, and I have traced his steps where he must have fled across the field to hide himself in the darkness, only to die almost within a stone's-throw of this house. He had sworn to meet me face to face, and it was to be--like this! The hand of God was in it. I might have kept silent. The secret was in my hands alone. No human law could reach me now that his tongue is silent; but lying there, as he lay yesterday, dead, in rags, he has spoken as no living man could speak! He has accused and convicted and sentenced me, as no human law could have done!" He ceased as abruptly as he had began. He stood there, broken, self-accused, in a humiliation so deep, a despair so utter, that the sternest of his listeners was moved to a compassion which fought desperately with the horror his story had inspired. Involuntarily, unconsciously, those nearest him had shrunk away until he stood apart, alone, at the foot of the coffin, from which the dead, half-opened eyes seem to hold him in a stony, unrelenting stare. For a time there was a complete, terrible silence. Then the minister, who had sat all this time at the head of the coffin, his venerable head bowed upon his hands, rose, and went across the room, his mild face illumined with a look of divine pity. He laid his withered hands upon Dixon's folded arms, and spoke: "'When I kept silence my bones waxed old. Day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me. "'Mine iniquities are gone over my head, as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. I am troubled. I am bowed down greatly. My sorrow is continually before me. I will declare my iniquity. I will be sorry for my sin. Forsake me not, O Lord! Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!'" All heads were bowed. From the corner where the women sat together came the sound of suppressed sobbing. The minister went back to his place, and folding his hands above the coffin, said: "Let us pray." When the prayer was ended, the coffin was closed, and, followed by the entire assemblage, was borne to the place prepared for it. The day was mild. A dense, soft snow was falling, through which the figures of men and women moved with phantasmal noiselessness. Dixon walked foremost by the side of the clergyman. When all was over, he raised his eyes from the icy clods of the new-made grave. The venerable man stood silent at its foot. Otherwise he was alone.