Leo Stornway lingered for more weeks than either he or the doctor had anticipated, but one morning, just at the beginning of the New Year, he was found lying calm, pallid, pulseless. His race was run. Silently and in loneliness the end had come to a silent lonely life. His desire had been to dispose of his earthly frame in as classical a manner as possible. The notion he would have really revelled in would have been a funeral pyre on the common, with the villagers solemnly running races and engaging in wrestling bouts in honour of his Manes, in true Greek style. This being obviously out of the question, he had set his heart upon the nearest thing possible--ordinary cremation. This urgent desire was found solemnly written on the back of a used envelope. Hereupon arose trouble for Evarne. The local undertaker, who respectfully yet promptly put in an appearance, was aghast at her intention of arranging for the burning of her father's body. He had no sympathy whatsoever with innovations in his staid and respectable business. "It's the last thing you will ever be able to do for your dear, dead parent, Miss Evarne," said the dour-looking man. "Give him a solid coffin--it needn't even be oak, we have good lines in elm and ash--but _do_ give him a decent coffin, and have him put under the earth like he ought to be!" Mrs. Jarman was of opinion that such a departure from conventionality would be absolutely indecent. She also waxed eloquent in another direction. "I allus thought you loved your poor dead Pa. I could 'ave sworn you wouldn't 'ave 'urt a 'air of his 'ead!" she repeated again and again, as if Evarne's resolve now disposed of that supposition once and for all. Dr. Crossways was so sure that had he only been consulted in reasonable time neither cremation nor burial would now be under discussion at all, that he declined to offer the least suggestion of any sort. As to the vicar and the curate, they called together on a visit of combined sympathy and expostulation. Both seemed convinced that a case of cremation must prove a serious inconvenience to the Almighty on the Judgment Day--even if it did not place Him in an absolute dilemma. Into this general confusion and misery, Morris Kenyon--summoned by Mrs. Jarman--descended with all the _eclat_ of the God in the Machine. He arrived at the very moment when the two rival dressmakers of Heatherington, having appeared simultaneously armed with yard measures and black patterns, were quarrelling in stage whispers in the porch. This weighty matter settled, he proceeded to take all the arrangements into his capable hands. Finally, he sat down to a quiet conversation with the grateful Evarne, the more beautiful for the pallor and distress, concerning her future.