Above the hard twinkling slope of grass, the sky was a cold, pure blue. Pine trees, tall and conical, were flaming satin, dark against the flat white burning disk of the sun. In a shining tree the white sun burnt innocently, like an enormous Christmas candle. There was happiness in the strong, bitter smell of the pine trees warmed by the sun. The light that floated thin between their branches was sprayed fine from the circle of heat, like the stiff, hot hair of an angel, burning harsh and glorious as it floated from a halo. The wind rushed up against the trees and they stirred darkly as in a shining sleep. The branches swayed; crossed each other; and fell back. Among the graves there were obelisks, like paralytic fingers stripped dry to the bone, pointing up. A geranium in a pot was still on a grave like a red glass flame. Among the tombs it slept, encased in brightness. A fruit tree in premature bloom was shedding its blighted petals. Heavily the tree, weighted with white, shed its ripe silence. The petals fell, and mingled with the satin flakes of light on the trembling grass. The still grave posts were deep in silence. The silence was asleep. It did not know itself. Silence crept waist high. Breast high. Drowned in itself. It was asleep. When the sun sank, out from the copper-blue night, from the horizon, the dark trees rolled angrily. The remote stars flashed blue sparks like a paler rage. But infinitely deep, from the night of the earth, the gray-white tombstones floated up. * * * * * Laurence could not believe in death. He did not know it. But he was sick with death, because it oppressed his unbelief. He wanted to take it into himself and understand it. Yet the same breath which desired knowledge was filled with protest. He wanted to get away from the thing which crushed him with its unknown being--crushed him in the blankness of the still sunshine and the cold wind above the damp, new grave. When he reached home after the funeral, the children had come back. May clung about her father. Because of her fear of him, she seemed to know him better than others knew him. For her own sake he wanted her to hate him, to keep herself separate from his pity of her. He felt his pity for others in him like a rottenness. He would have torn the sickness out of his flesh, but it was through him, decaying him. His blood was dry. If he saw anything unworthy, he immediately discovered its weakness, and sheltered it with his contempt. He could not be clean and strong and harsh for himself. That was why he could fight for nothing that he wished; because his enemies were inside him, and in order to destroy them he had to tear and torture himself. If the sickness in him had been his own, he could have cured it; but it was the sickness of his children, of Alice, of his father and mother.