aal, I'm sort o' relieved that wasn't MY funeral," he heard one of
them say.

He walked at full speed to restore his famished circulation. When he
was in the heart of the town again, he entered a cafe; and there he
remained, with his elbows on the little marble table, letting the scene
he had just come through pass once more before his mind. There had been
something grotesquely indecent about the haste of every one concerned:
the chaplain, gabbling like a parrot, out of regard for the safety of
his own lungs; the hurry-skurry of the diggers, whose thoughts were no
doubt running on the size of their gratuities; the openly expressed
satisfaction of the few mourners, when they were free to hurry off
again, as in hurry they had arrived. Not one present but had counted
the minutes, at the expiry of which the dead girl would be consigned to
her appointed hole. What an ending! All the talent, the incipient
genius, that had been in her, thrust away with the greatest possible
despatch, buried out of sight in the hideously hard, cold earth.
Snuffed out like a candle, and with as little ceremony, was all the
warm, complex life that had made up this one, throbbing bit of
humanity: for what it had been, not a soul alive now cared. And what a
night, too, for one's first night underground! Brr!--At the thought of
it, he drank another cup of coffee, and a fiery, stirring liqueur. But
the sense of depression clung to him, and, as he walked home, he
regretted the impulse that had led him to attend the funeral. For all
the melancholy of valediction was his. The dead girl was free--and he
had a sudden vision of her, as she had lain in the mortuary, with the
look of superhuman peace on her face. Over the head of this, he was
sarcastic at his own expense. For though she WERE being treated like a
piece of lumber, what did it matter to her? Beneath the screening lid,
she continued to sleep, tranquil, undisturbed. On the other hand, how
absurd it was that he, who had cared little for her in life, should in
this wise constitute himself her only mourner! And, mentally and
physically, he now jerked himself to rights, and even began to whistle,
as he went, in an attempt to seem at harmony with himself. But the tune
that rose to his lips was Krafft's song, THE ROSE OF SHARON, and he
straightway broke off, in disgust and confusion.

In his room, as soon as he had struck a match to light the lamp, he saw
that a letter was lying on the table. By the g