what
should happen, a languor that forbade him from railing on fate.
Together they prepared matters as for a journey.

"If the black trousers come frayed again," said Christina, "try to
remember that the scissors are better than a knife. And the seeds are
all in the box under our bed."

"In the box under our bed," repeated David carefully. "Yes, under the
bed. I will remember."

"And this, David," holding up piles of white linen, "this is for me.
You will not forget?"

"For you?" he queried, not understanding.

"Yes," she answered softly. "I will be buried in this."

He started, but recovered himself with a quivering lip.

"Of course," he answered. "I will see to it. I must be very old,
Christina."

She came over and kissed him on the forehead.

In the middle of the afternoon she went to bed, and he came in and
sat beside her. She held his hand, and smiled at him.

"Are you dying now?" he asked at length.

"Yes," she said. "What shall I tell Frikkie and the kleintje from
you?"

"Tell them nothing," he said, after a pause. "It cannot be that I
shall be apart from you all long. No; I am very sure of that."

She pressed his hand, and soon afterwards felt some pain. It was
little, and she made no outcry. Her death was calm and not strongly
distressing, and the next day David put her into the ground where her
sons lay.

But, as I have made clear, he did not die till long afterwards, when
he had sold his farm and come to live in the little white house in
the dorp, where colors jostled each other in the garden, and
fascinated children watched him go in and come out. I think the story
explains that perpetual search of which his vacant eyes gave news,
and the joyous alacrity of his last home-coming, and the perfect
technique of his death. It all points to the conclusion, that however
brave the figures, however aspiring their capers, they but respond to
strings which are pulled and loosened elsewhere.

XII

THE HIDDEN WAY

A veil 'twixt us and Thee, dread Lord, A veil 'twixt us and Thee!
Lest we should hear too clear, too clear, And unto madness see.

Carrick crossed the fields in time to see, from the low bank above
the churchyard, the children coming forth from Sunday school in the
church, blinking contentedly at the late summer sunlight and all the
familiar world from which, for two hours, they had been exiles. A
little behind them came Mr. Newman, carrying his sober hat in his
hand, and the cura