. And after that she
did not feel that, even if she could have talked to her mother, it would
be important to say the things she had thought she wanted to say. Here,
in this place of the dead, those things seemed understood. Vindication
was not necessary. Was not life life, and should not one live before
death came? She saw the monuments marking the graves of the Lawrences,
the Blairs, the Williams', the Franklins,--her mother's and her father's
people. They seemed so strangely one: people who had lived. She looked
across the hills to the town which these people had built. Right beside
her was her grandfather's grave; she thought of his stories of how, when
a little boy, he came with his people to that place not then a town; his
stories of the beginnings of it, of the struggles and conflicts that had
made it what it was. She thought of their efforts, their
disappointments, their hopes, their loves. Their loves.... She felt very
close to them in that. And as she thought of it there rose a strange
feeling, a feeling that came strangely strong and sure: If these people
who had passed from living were given an after moment of consciousness,
a moment when they could look back on life and speak to it, she felt
that their voices, with all the force they could gather, would be raised
for more living. Why did we not live more abundantly? Why did we not
hold life more precious? Were they given power to say just one word,
would they not, seeing life from death, cry--Live!

Twilight came; the world had the sweetness of that hour just before
night. A breeze stirred softly; birds called lovingly--loving life. The
whole fragrance of the world was breathed into one word. It was as if
life had caught the passionate feeling of death; it was as if that after
consciousness of those who had left life, and so knew its preciousness,
broke through into things still articulate. The earth breathed--Live!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Cyrus Holland died just before daybreak next morning. It seemed to Deane
Franklin that he had only just fallen asleep when the telephone beside
him was ringing. When tired out he slept through other noises, but that
one always instantly reached--a call to him that got through sleep. He
wakened just enough to reach out for the 'phone and his "Hello!" was
cross. Was there never a time when one could be let alone? But the voice
that came to him banished both sleep and irritation. It was Ruth's
voice, saying quietly, ten