It was Isabey who took charge of everything concerning the dead man, who was more than a brother to him. He had the pine coffin carried into the drawing-room, and gave directions for the immediate making of Richard Tremaine’s grave in the old burying ground in the field. At the end of an hour Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine came out of the library. Both were singularly calm, as the human soul often is when it has received a mortal blow. They went into the drawing-room, where Richard Tremaine’s rude coffin lay upon four chairs. It was quite covered with wreaths and sprays of laurel, which Angela had gathered, and which she was arranging upon the rude pine box. This was her first close view of death, and she was awed and shaken with grief, but very far from frightened by it. The peace and repose of it came home strangely to her. Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine sat down at the head of the coffin, and in a moment the old relations between Neville’s parents and Angela, the tie of parents and child, was resurrected. Mrs. Tremaine held out her hand instinctively for Angela’s, and the two women sat with hands clasped. Colonel Tremaine said: “Where is my son, my only remaining son?” He spoke unconsciously, and at these words a tremor passed through the mother of Neville Tremaine. Was Neville, then, still dead, though in life? Her troubled eyes sought Angela’s, and Angela, falling upon her knees by Richard Tremaine’s coffin, cried to his father and mother: “Have you forgotten Neville? Will you still thrust him from your hearts? Richard did not. He loved Neville just the same and never called him a traitor, but a man of honor and the best of brothers and of sons. O Aunt Sophia, won’t you take pity on Neville now?” And then, catching Colonel Tremaine’s hand, she cried, while tears rained down her cheeks: “Ask Aunt Sophia to take pity on Neville!” Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine remained silent, and Angela, leaning her head against the rude pine coffin, said, weeping: “O Richard, if you could speak, you would plead for Neville!” Then Colonel Tremaine asked brokenly of Mrs. Tremaine: “Shall we forgive our son?” “Yes, yes,” answered Mrs. Tremaine, and a sense of solemn joy came into their riven hearts. At that moment Archie entered and stood by his parents. All at once the boy seemed to reach the stature of a man. “My son,” said Colonel Tremaine, “your mother and I have given this dear son to his country. He is now no more, and you, although you are not yet of age to bear arms, must take your brother’s place.” “Thank you, father,” answered Archie. Mrs. Tremaine rose, laying her hand on his shoulder: “If it be that I must give you up, too, I do it cheerfully. If I had to lose my son, this is the way in which I should choose to give him up.”