lm that I could contrive to recall to my
recollection, on condition that all present should meanwhile leave the
hut (for I felt that, since the task would be one novel to me, the
attendance of auditors might hinder me from mustering my entire stock
of petitions), she so disbelieved me, or failed to understand me, that
for long enough she could only stand tottering in the doorway as, with
twitching nose, she drew her sleeve across her worn, diminutive
features.

Nevertheless she did, at last, take her departure.

* * * * *

Low over the steppe, stray flashes of summer lightning still gleamed
against the jet black sky as they flooded the hut with their lurid
shimmer; and each time that the darkness of the sultry night swept back
into the room, the candle flickered, and the corpse's prone figure
seemed to open its half-closed eyes and glance at the shadows which
palpitated on its breast, and danced over the white walls and ceiling.

Similarly did I glance from time to time at HIM, yet glance with a
guarded eye, and with a feeling in me that when a corpse is present
anything may happen; until finally I rallied conscience to my aid, and
recited under my breath:

"Pardon Thou all who have sinned, whether they be men, or whether they,
being not men, do yet stand higher than the beasts of the field."

However, the only result of the recitation was to bring to my mind a
thought directly at variance with the import of the words, the thought
that "it is not sin that is hard and bitter to ensue, but
righteousness."

"Sins wilful and of ignorance," I continued. "Sins known and unknown.
Sins committed through imprudence and evil example. Sins committed
through forwardness and sloth."

"Though to YOU, brother," mentally I added to the corpse, "none of
this, of course, applies."

Again, glancing at the blue stars, where they hung glittering in the
fathomless obscurity of the sky, I reflected:

"Who in this house is looking at them save myself?"

Presently, with a pattering of claws over the beaten clay of the floor,
there entered the dog. Once or twice it paced the length of the room.
Then, with a sniff at my legs, and a grumble to itself, it departed as
it had come. Perhaps the creature felt too old to bay a dirge to its
master after the manner of its kind. In any case, as it vanished
through the doorway, the shadows--so I fancied--sought to slip out
after it, and, floating in that direction, fa