A special train was sent to Great River, and the little party waited for it on the station platform, surrounded by awed villagers, who stood silent in the presence of death and a mystery which they but dimly comprehended. Officers of the law from Clarkson came with the train and surrounded Bishop Delafield, Wheaton and Saxton as they stood with Grant Porter by the rude bier of Warry Raridan. The men answered many questions and the sheriff of the county took the detectives away with him. Margrave had sent his private car, and the returning party were huddled in one end of it, save John Saxton, who sat alone with the body of Warry Raridan. The train was to go back immediately, but it waited for the west-bound express which followed it and passed the special here. There was a moment's confusion as the special with its dark burden was switched into a siding to allow the regular train to pass. Then the special returned to the main track and began its homeward journey. John sat with his arms folded, sunk into his greatcoat, and watched the gray landscape through the snow that was falling fast. The events of the night seemed like a hideous dream. It was an inconceivable thing that within a few hours so dire a calamity could have fallen. The very nearness of the city to which they were bound added to the unreality of all that had happened. But there the dark burden lay; and the snow fell upon the gray earth and whitened it, as if to cleanse and remake it and blot out its dolor and dread. The others left Saxton alone; he was nearer than they; but late in the afternoon, as they approached the city, Captain Wheelock came in and touched him on the shoulder; Bishop Delafield wished to see him. John rose, giving Wheelock his place, and went back to where the old man sat staring out at the snow. He beckoned Saxton to sit down by him. "Where's Wheaton?" the bishop asked. John looked at him and at the other men who sat in silence about the car. He went to one of them and repeated the bishop's question, but was told that Wheaton was not on the train. He had been at the station and had come aboard the car with the rest; but he must have returned to the station and been left. John remembered the passing of the west-bound express, and went back and told the bishop that Wheaton had not come with them. The old man shook his head and turned again to the window and the flying panorama of the snowy landscape. John sat by him, and neither spoke until the train's speed diminished at a crossing on the outskirts of Clarkson. Then suddenly, hot at heart and with tears of sorrow and rage in his eyes, Saxton said, so that only the bishop could hear: "He's a damned coward!" The Bishop of Clarkson stared steadily out upon the snow with troubled eyes. CHAPTER XXXVII "A PECULIAR BRICK"