“No, not mine. My wife's. Poor fellow! he feels it keenly. They had not been married long, you know.” The rain was falling in a steady downpour. They had reached Turner Joyce's gate, and paused. “Won't you come in and wait until it moderates, Mr. Oakley?” Oakley yielded an assent, and followed him through the gate and around the house. CHAPTER III THERE were three people in the kitchen, the principal living room of the Joyce home--Christopher Berry, the undertaker; Jeffy, the local outcast, a wretched ruin of a man; and Turner Joyce's wife, Ruth. Jeffy was seated at a table, eating. He was a cousin of the Benticks, and Mrs. Joyce had furnished him with a complete outfit from her husband's slender wardrobe for the funeral on the morrow. Oakley had never known him to be so well or so wonderfully dressed, and he had seen him in a number of surprising costumes. His black trousers barely reached the tops of his shoes, while the sleeves of his shiny Prince Albert stopped an inch or more above his wrists; he furthermore appeared to be in imminent danger of strangulation, such was the height and tightness of his collar. The thumb and forefinger of his right hand were gone, the result of an accident at a Fourth of July celebration, where, at the instigation of Mr. Gid Runyon--a gentleman possessing a lively turn of mind and gifted with a keen sense of humor--he had undertaken to hold a giant fire-cracker while it exploded, the inducement being a quart of whiskey, generously donated for the occasion by Mr. Runyon himself. Mrs. Joyce had charged herself with Jeffy's care. She was fearful that he might escape and sell his clothes before the funeral. She knew they would go immediately after, but then he would no longer be in demand as a mourner. As for Jeffy, he was feeling the importance of his position. With a fine sense of what was expected from him as a near relative he had spent the day in the stricken home: its most picturesque figure, seated bolt upright in the parlor, a spotless cotton handkerchief in his hand, and breathing an air of chastened sorrow. He had exchanged mournful greetings with the friends of the family, and was conscious that he had acquitted himself to the admiration of all. The Swede “help,” who was new to Antioch, had thought him a person of the first distinction, so great was the curiosity merely to see him. Christopher Berry was a little, dried-up man of fifty, whose name was chance, but whose profession was choice. He was his own best indorsement, for he was sere and yellow, and gave out a faint, dry perfume as of drugs, or tuberoses. “Well, Mrs. Joyce,” he was saying, as Oakley and the little artist entered the room, “I guess there ain't nothing else to settle. Don't take it so to heart; there are grand possibilities in death, even if we can't always realize them, and we got a perfect body. I can't remember when I seen death so majestic, and I may say--ca'm.”