The girl grasped his arm with fingers that closed with a grip like a
drowning person.

"I couldn't see her when she was living--surely I can see her dead." Then
with a wail, "Oh, no--no, not dead! Oh, my God!"

She sobbed in a dry sort of way that contracted Silas's throat to witness,
and left the old man almost as undone as herself, and without further
argument he drove on to Nathan Hornby's desolated home, where he lifted
her tenderly down from the high seat, with a mist before his eyes that
blurred her image till it was unrecognizable, and stood watching her go up
the path.

A woman met her at the door, but she did not know who, and brushed past
her hurriedly and ran into the kitchen, where she could see Nathan Hornby
sitting with his head on his arms beside the kitchen table.

Going down on her knees with a swift movement, Elizabeth threw her arm
across his shoulder, and laid her head beside his, sobbing convulsively.
Nathan raised his head in dull surprise, and seeing who it was, shook her
arm off resentfully and rose to his feet. Elizabeth crawled after him on
her knees and clasped his own with both arms, turning her stricken face up
to his and crying:

"Oh, I know! I know how you feel, but truly, truly, Uncle Nate, I am not
to blame. For God's sake--for God's sake, forgive!"

He looked down on her coldly and was tempted to spurn her from him with
his foot, but there was such anguish in voice and eye as he himself had
hardly felt, and his wife's words, her last words, flashed through his
bewildered brain: "We can't tell what anybody has to contend with." He
stood irresolute while she rose to her feet. When he did not answer her,
Elizabeth threw herself down in the chair from which he had just risen and
bowing her head on the table moaned in such bitterness of spirit that
Nathan was moved to pity, and would have comforted her if he could.

Silas, having tied his team, came to the kitchen door, but on seeing its
occupants turned hastily and went out to his wagon again, where he stood
choking and swallowing in helpless misery.

Presently, Nathan Hornby, at a loss to check her grief, laid a hand on her
shoulder and said:

"Come and see her, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth Hunter arose like one walking in her sleep and followed Nathan
to the sitting room. The black casket resting on two chairs in the middle
of the room was a worse shock than any she had yet had, and with a
horror-stricken cry of fright she fled to