"I am surprised myself," Tug answered, "but the devotion of Annie Dorris to the memory of her husband has set me to thinking. The people believe that Allan Dorris was buried in The Locks' yard, by Thompson Benton, but I know that his iron coffin still stands in the room where you saw it. I think his clay feels grateful for the favor, for it has never been offensive like ordinary flesh. The lid has been shut down never to be opened again, but when I last looked under it, I saw little except what you might find in the road,--dust." The chill of the evening air reminds them that it is time for little Ben to go in, but the two men remain outside to look at the sunset. "The people of this town," Mr. Whittle continued, after the boy had disappeared, "are greatly amused over the statement that when an ostrich is pursued, it buries its head in the sand and imagines that it is hid. I tell you that we are a community of ostriches; I occasionally put a head into the sand myself, and so do you and all the rest of them. When little Ben is near me, I try to cause him to forget the years I neglected him, by being kind, but he never looks at me with his mild eyes that I do not fear he is thinking: You only have your head in the sand, and there is so much of you in sight that I remember Quade. Therefore I keep out of his way whenever I can. Do you think his cough is any better?" "I am afraid not, Tug," Silas replied. "I was thinking to-day that it is growing steadily worse." Tug looked toward the setting sun and the church, and the solemn tones of the organ came to them; Annie Dorris was playing the hymn the words of which seemed to be "Mercy! Mercy!" "Word will be sent to you some day," Tug said, as if the music had suggested it, "that little Ben is--" he paused, and shivered, dreading to pronounce the word--"worse. I wish you would get word to me some way, without letting any one know it; I want to go away somewhere. Then you can come out for me, and tell them on your return that I could not be found. It is bad enough for me to look at him now; I could never forget my sin toward him were I to see him dead. Of course you will go with him to the cemetery, with Mrs. Dorris and Mrs. Wedge and Betty; and I would like to have the baby at poor Ben's funeral, for he thinks so much of it, but it will be better for me to stay away, though I want them to think it accidental. When I return, you can show me the place, and on my way to and from the town I will stop there and think of the hymn which Mrs. Dorris plays so much."