He dared not speak even to Immy of the secret in the walls. He could only stand aside and mourn the felling of the great tree-steeples. He and Immy watched the wrecking crew demolishing the house, throwing the chimneys down, tearing off the roof and opening the attic to the sun. Then the ceiling went and the floors of the bedrooms where their bare feet had toddled. At last the house was gone, all but the main floor, and from that stairways went up to nowhere. After the wrecking crew had left off work for the day, Keith and Immy wandered one evening through the place where the house once was, and poked about the débris on the library floor. They noted the hearthstone of white marble. They had seen to the removal of the graves before the tulip trees came down. The family had been transported to the increasing city of the dead at Kensico, but they were still debating what monument to rear. One little coffin was found there which Keith could not account for. That was Immy’s secret and she kept it, though it ached in her old heart, remembering the wild romance of her youth. A blush slipped through her wrinkles and the shame was almost pleasant at this distance. Now that she and Keith stared at the white marble hearthstone, they were both inspired by a single thought. “Let’s use that for a headstone in the family lot in Kensico!” Immy said and Keith agreed. They were proud of the felicity of their inspiration and hiring laborers, stole the slab that very night and carried it over to the graveyard, and saw to its establishing. And they never knew the final irony of its presence there above the parallel bodies of David and Patty RoBards. It linked Harry Chalender’s destiny forever with theirs. But they never made a protest. It was the Parthian shot of fate, the perfection of the contemptible contemptuousness with which life regards its victims. Unwitting of this dismal joke upon his father and remembering only the secret of which he was trustee, Keith loitered about to see the cellar walls demolished and the dead Jud Lasher brought to light. He kept wondering what to say when the crisis was reached. He could not find a lie to utter. But from somewhere the edict came that the cellar walls should not be taken away; and the workmen abandoned them. And now the house was gone as if it had been burned in some night of fire. But it had served its time. It had lived the short life of wooden homes. Stone houses may outlast sonnets and coins and chronicles, but houses of wood and of flesh perish soon. They have lived as stone never lived. Through the wood the white blood of sap once coursed and trees, like hearts, suffer too well for time to endure. They must go back to the dust whence new trees and new hearts are made. It was time for the old house to vanish. Like a human heart it had held within its walls sorrow and honor, passion and crime. It was time for it to cease to beat, cease to be.