This necessary task on which Bobby had stumbled had made the thicket less congenial than the house. As he walked back he forecasted with a keen apprehension his approaching ordeal. It would, doubtless, be more difficult to endure than Howells's experiment over Silas Blackburn's body in the old room. Could he witness the definite imprisonment of his grandfather in a narrow box; could he watch the covering earth fall noisily in that bleak place of silence without displaying for Robinson the guilt that impressed him more and more? A strange man appeared, walking from the direction of the house. His black clothing, relieved only by narrow edges of white cuffs between the sleeves and the heavy mourning gloves, fitted with solemn harmony into the landscape and Bobby's mood. Such a figure was appropriate to the Cedars. Bobby stepped to one side, placing a screen of dead foliage between himself and the man whose profession it was to mourn. He emerged from the forest and saw again the leisurely weaving of the smoke shroud above the house. Then his eyes were drawn by the restless movements of a pair of horses, standing in the shafts of a black wagon at the court entrance, and his ordeal became like a vast morass which offers no likely path yet whose crossing is the price of salvation. He was glad to see Graham leave the court and hurry toward him. "I was coming to hunt you up, Bobby. The minister's arrived. So has Doctor Groom. Everything's about ready." "Doctor Groom?" "Yes. He used to see a good deal of your grandfather. It's natural enough he should be here." Bobby agreed indifferently. They walked slowly back to the house. Graham made it plain that his mind was far from the sad business ahead. "What do you think of Paredes coming back as if nothing were wrong?" he asked. "He ignores what happened yesterday. He settles himself in the Cedars again." "I don't know what to think of it," Bobby answered. "This morning Carlos gave me the creeps." Graham glanced at him curiously. He spoke with pronounced deliberation, startling Bobby; for this friend expressed practically the thought that Paredes's arrival had driven into his own mind. "Gave me the creeps, too. Makes me surer than ever that he has an abominably deep purpose in using his wits to hang on here. He suggests resources as hard to understand as anything that has happened in the old room. You'll confess, Bobby, he's had a good deal of influence over you--an influence for evil?" "I've liked to go around with him, if that's what you mean." "Isn't he the cause of the last two or three months nonsense in New York?" "I won't blame Carlos for that," Bobby muttered. "He influenced you against your better judgment," Graham persisted, "to refuse to leave with me the night of your grandfather's death." "Maria did her share," Bobby said. He broke off, looking at Graham. "What are you driving at?"