From his seat at one end of the platform Gerson Brandt, with pitying eyes, looked upon Walda. His thin face had a pinched look, and from his eyes had faded the last smouldering fires of youth and hope. He sat with hands tensely clasped, except when, now and then, he pressed his thin fingers to his temples, from which the long hair, touched with gray, fell back to his shoulders. Karl Weisel read a long chapter from the Bible, and then a meek elder offered a prayer. Adolph Schneider next told the people of their dead brother’s services to the colony. His thick, droning voice, monotonous in its cadences, did not hold Walda’s attention, until presently she knew he was speaking of her and accusing her of unfaithfulness to Zanah. She listened with downcast eyes, her lithe body quivering with emotion, but she was too proud to show the pain she suffered. She choked back the tears and prayed for strength. At last the funeral address was finished. The bier was carried out into the golden sunshine. Walda rose as if to follow it, but one of the elders detained her. “Is it meet that one who wears the scarlet cloak should walk first behind the bier?” he asked. Gerson Brandt answered by going to Walda’s side, pulling her arm through his, and waving the people aside. “He hath touched Walda Kellar’s hand, and he is no kin to her!” cried Mother Kaufmann; but the school-master walked on as if he had not heard her. Tenderly he supported Walda’s faltering footsteps. The procession formed behind them, the men and women walking on opposite sides of the village street, while Gerson Brandt and Walda kept in the middle of the grass-grown road, directly behind Wilhelm Kellar’s coffin. “Gerson Brandt, thou art, indeed, a friend in mine hour of trouble,” Walda said, when they had reached the strip of woods and the bier had been put down in order that its bearers might rest. “Until death thou wilt be ever safe in my heart,” the school-master answered, solemnly. “Pray that I may have fortitude when I see the earth cover my father’s body,” she whispered, as the procession started again, and he pressed her arm to give her the assurance of his aid. The school-master could have prayed that the walk to the graveyard might last forever. He knew that, in all the coming years which might belong to him on earth, he might never again touch her or be close to her. He trembled in the excess of his joy. He felt a great strength taking possession of him. They came to the lake, and he looked out upon it as it lay undisturbed by wave or ripple. Around the water’s hem the yellowing willows dipped into the placid pool. The sumach flamed among the oak-trees. “When thou art gone from me out into the world I shall pray that thy soul shall be untroubled as is this lake to-day,” he murmured, softly. “Ah! To-day I feel that I must remain here in Zanah to make atonement for my betrayal of the people’s trust,” she answered.