the execution of the ghoulish task.

The colonel's heart hardened as he stood by his son's grave. Then he
took a long lingering look at the tombs of his ancestors and turned
away with an air of finality.

From the cemetery he went to the undertaker's, and left an order;
thence to the telegraph office, from which he sent a message to his
former partner in New York; and thence to the Treadwells'.

_Thirty-seven_

Miss Laura came forward with outstretched hands and tear-stained eyes
to greet him.

"Henry," she exclaimed, "I am shocked and sorry, I cannot tell you how
much! Nor do I know what else to say, except that the best people do
not--cannot--could not--approve of it!"

"The best people, Laura," he said with a weary smile, "are an
abstraction. When any deviltry is on foot they are never there to
prevent it--they vanish into thin air at its approach. When it is
done, they excuse it; and they make no effort to punish it. So it is
not too much to say that what they permit they justify, and they
cannot shirk the responsibility. To mar the living--it is the history
of life--but to make war upon the dead!--I am going away, Laura, never
to return. My dream of usefulness is over. To-night I take away my
dead and shake the dust of Clarendon from my feet forever. Will you
come with me?"

"Henry," she said, and each word tore her heart, "I have been
expecting this--since I heard. But I cannot go; my duty calls me here.
My mother could not be happy anywhere else, nor would I fit into any
other life. And here, too, I am useful--and may still be useful--and
should be missed. I know your feelings, and would not try to keep you.
But, oh, Henry, if all of those who love justice and practise humanity
should go away, what would become of us?"

"I leave to-night," he returned, "and it is your right to go with me,
or to come to me."

"No, Henry, nor am I sure that you would wish me to. It was for the
old town's sake that you loved me. I was a part of your dream--a part
of the old and happy past, upon which you hoped to build, as upon the
foundations of the old mill, a broader and a fairer structure. Do you
remember what you told me, that night--that happy night--that you
loved me because in me you found the embodiment of an ideal? Well,
Henry, that is why I did not wish to make our engagement known, for I
knew, I felt, the difficulty of your task, and I foresaw that you
might be disappointed, and I feared that if your