Christabel, however, flamed up in return, and by degrees the showman became terribly angry, and threatened to turn her out of doors. The end was that Christabel went up-stairs, locked herself in her bedroom, and began to look out her things for packing off the next day. Meanwhile the showman lay down by the fire, went to sleep, and dreamt he was proprietor of a pair of giants, two skeletons, five boa constrictors, and a wax-work museum: that he wore a tiger-skin coat, and walked about smoking a cigar, whilst a brass band beneath a gorgeous display of pictures performed the Conquering Hero, with real gas shining on their music books, and that all he had to do was to wear the tiger-skin coat, smoke thick cigars, and swear at everybody who did not please him. CHAPTER VIII. WHAT ARTHUR PHILLIPS SAW THROUGH THE MIST. A white, wet, grovelling mist; with a long, black procession creeping through it; and the solemn tolling of a village bell; nodding plumes and draped horses; a small group of well-dressed farmers, the tenants of the late Mr. Tallant. There was something weird and miserable about the whole thing, as Arthur Phillips viewed it at a distance; something that chilled him and bowed him down. He followed the mourners into the church; the solemn village church, with its high-backed pews, brass monuments, and marble effigies; the solemn little church, with the ivy nodding round the porch, and the damp making big blotches on the pavement. The mourners shuffled into their seats, and the villagers came peering in with vacant looks. “In the midst of life we are in death.” The words were repeated back again from the walls, and the kneeling effigies in stone seemed to take up the text and say it over again with the echoes. The great black coffin stood in the chancel, and Arthur could not help picturing the dead face of the merchant. How changed everything was. How sad, how hopeless! And yet Arthur’s own deep love, for a moment, lit up his thoughts with a hope that had scarcely had a place in his heart before; but he banished the thought in a moment as selfish. Richard Tallant was there amongst the mourners, loudest in his Amens, and apparently most moved, as he should be, at the pathetic solemnity of the church service. Arthur quietly walked over the fields to the Somertons, whilst the coffin was being laid in the grave. A faint streak or two of sunlight struggled through the mist here and there, but with little or no influence on the soddened, damp atmosphere, which penetrated everything. Arthur found Mrs. Somerton alone in a high-backed chair by the fire. He knew that he was no favourite with the bailiff’s wife; but he bade her “Good-morning” with a quiet courtesy peculiarly his own, and she was evidently not displeased at the visit.