Next day, then, in accordance with the woman's device, the boy and his mother set out with the veiled man for the Church of the Lifted Cross, where the obsequies of Senator Boligand were to take place. It was sad weather--a cold rain falling, the city gray, all the world black-clad and dripping and sour of countenance. The veiled man said never a word; he held the boy's hand tight, and strode gloomily on--silent of melancholy, of protest, of ill temper: there was no knowing, for his face was hid. The woman, distinguished by a mass of blinding blonde hair and a complexion susceptible to change by the weather, was dressed in the ultra-fashionable way--the small differences of style all accentuated: the whole tawdry and shabby and limp in the rain. The child, a slender boy, delicately white of skin, curly headed, with round, dark eyes, outlooking in wonder and troubled regard, but yet bravely enough, trotted between the woman and the man, a hand in the hand of each.... And when they came to the Church of the Lifted Cross; and when the tiny, flickering lights, and the stained windows, and the shadows overhead, and the throbbing, far-off music had worked their spell upon him, he snuggled close to his mother, wishing himself well away from the sadness and mystery of the place, but glad that its solemn splendour honoured the strange change his father had chosen to undergo. "Have they brought papa yet?" he whispered. "Hush!" she answered. "He's come." For a moment she was in a panic--lest the child's prattle, being perilously indiscreet, involve them all in humiliating difficulties. Scandal of this sort would be intolerable to the young Boligand widow. "Where is he?" "Don't talk so loud, dear. He's down in front--where all the lights are." "Can't we go there?' "No, no!" she whispered, quickly. "It isn't the way. We must sit here. Don't talk, dear; it isn't the way." "I'd like to--kiss him." "Oh, my!" she exclaimed. "It isn't allowed. We got to sit right here. That's the way it's always done. Hush, dear! Please don't talk." With prayer and soulful dirges--employing white robes and many lights and the voices of children--the body of Senator Boligand was dealt with, in the vast, dim church, according to the forms prescribed, and with due regard for the wishes of the young widow. The Senator was an admirable substitute; Dick Slade's glorious ascension was accomplished. And the heart of the child was comforted by this beauty: for then he knew that his father was by some high magic admitted to the place of which his mother had told him--some place high and blue and ever light as day. The fear of death passed from him. He was glad, for his father's sake, that his father had died; and he wished that he, too, might some day know the glory to which his father had attained. But when the earthly remains of the late distinguished Senator were borne down the aisle in solemn procession, the boy had a momentary return of grief.