He shook hands with the coroner, who was grumbling concerning the weather; then strode out back down the valley. Though long since he had grown familiar with the aspects of suffering, that scene in the cottage, by reason of its very simplicity, had affected him strangely. His heart was full of slow sorrow for the woman’s trouble, and the image of the child, lying beautiful in its death-sleep, passed and repassed in his mind. By-and-bye, the moaning of the wind, the whirling of lost leaves, the inky shingle-beds that stained the fell-sides, inclined his thoughts to a listless brooding. Life seemed dull, inevitable, draped in sombre, drifting shadows, like the valley-head. Yet in all good he saw the hand of God, a mysterious, invisible force, ever imperiously at work beneath the ravages of suffering and of sin. It was close upon six o’clock when he reached home. He was drenched to the skin, and as he sat before the fire, dense clouds of steam rose from his mud-stained boots and trousers. “Now, Mr. Burkett, jest ye gang and tak off them things, while I make yer tea. Ye’ll catch yer death one of these days--I know ye will. I sometimes think ye haven’t more sense than a boy, traipsin’ about all t’ day in t’ wet, and niver takin’ yer meals proper-like.” A faint smile flickered across his face. He was used to his landlady’s scoldings. “A child was drowned yesterday in the beck up at Beda Cottages. I had to go back there this afternoon to arrange about the funeral,” he mumbled, half-apologetically. Mrs. Parkin snorted defiantly, bustling round the table as she spread the cloth. Presently she broke out again: “An’ noo, ye set there lookin’ as white as a bogle. Why don’t ye go an’ git them wet clothes off. Ye’re fair wringin’.” He obeyed; though the effort to rise was great. He felt curiously cold: his teeth were clacking, and the warmth from the flames seemed delicious. In his bedroom a dizziness caught him, and it was a moment before he could recognise the familiar objects. And he realised that he was ill, and looked at himself in the glass with a dull, scared expression. He struggled through his dressing however, and went back to his tea. But, though he had eaten nothing since the morning, he had no appetite; so, from sheer force of habit, he lit a pipe, wheeling his chair close to the fire.