ss form on the bed, while the little dog, leaping up
beside his dead master, threw his head back and emitted a series of
prolonged and melancholy howls.

CHAPTER XXX.

OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH

"Men deal with life as children with their play,
Who first misuse, then cast their toys away."
--Cowper.

Bewildered by the scene through which he had just passed, Corson
returned to his rooms and spent the night in a sort of stupor. What
happened the next day he never knew; but on the following morning he
accompanied Mantel to the cemetery where, with simple but reverent
ceremony, they committed the body of the doctor to the bosom of earth.

Just as they were about to turn away, after the conclusion of the burial
service, a strange thing happened. The limb of a great elm tree, which
had been tied back to keep it out of the way of the workmen, was
released by the old sexton and swept back over the grave.

It produced a similar impression upon the minds of both the subdued
spectators. They glanced at each other, and Mantel said, "It was like
the wing of an angel!"

"Yes," added David with a sigh, "and seemed to brush away and obliterate
all traces of his sorrow and his sins."

They did not speak during their homeward journey, and when they reached
their rooms David paced uneasily backward and forward until the shadows
of evening had fallen. When he suddenly observed that it was dusk, he
took his hat and went out into the streets. There was something so
restless and unnatural about his movements as to excite the suspicion of
his friend, who waited for a single moment and then hurried after him.

The night was calm and clear, the autumn stars were shining in a
cloudless sky, and the tide of life which had surged through the busy
streets all day was ebbing like the waters from the bays and estuaries
along the shore of the ocean.

The sounds the people made in tramping over the stone pavements or
hurriedly driving over the hard streets, possessed a strangely different
quality from the monotonous and grinding roar of the daylight. They were
sharp, clear, resonant and emphatic. A single footfall attracted the
attention of a listener more than the previous shuffle of a thousand
feet. David's,--soft and subdued as it was,--resounded loudly, echoing
from the buildings on either side of him as he slowly paced along.

It was evident to every one who met him that he was moving aimlessly.
Now and then some