they did so, a tribute of
fragrant flowers upon the quiet breast. They were followed by the
servants, among whom Zadok had divided his roses. As the last cluster
fell from the coachman's trembling hand, the undertaker advanced with the
lid, and, pausing a moment to be sure that all were satisfied, began to
screw it on.

Suddenly there was a cry, and the crowd about the door leading into the
main hall started back, as wild steps were heard on the stairs and a
young man rushed into the room where the casket stood, and advanced upon
the officiating clergyman and the astonished undertaker with a fierceness
which was not without its suggestion of authority.

"Take it off!" he cried, pointing at the lid which had just been fastened
down. "I have not seen her--I must see her. Take it off!"

It was the brother, awake at last to the significance of the hour!

The clergyman, aghast at the sacrilegious look and tone of the intruder,
stepped back, raising one arm in remonstrance, and instinctively
shielding the casket with the other. But the undertaker saw in the
frenzied eye fixed upon his own, that which warned him to comply with the
request thus harshly and peremptorily uttered. Unscrewing the lid, he
made way for the intruder, who, drawing near, pushed aside the roses
which had fallen on the upturned face, and, laying his hand on the brow,
muttered a few low words to himself. Then he withdrew his hand, and
without glancing to right or left, staggered back to the door amid a hush
as unbroken as that which reigned behind him in that open casket. Another
moment and his white, haggard face and disordered figure would be blotted
from sight by the door-jamb.

The minister recovered his poise and the bearers their breath; the men
stirred in their seats and the women began to cast frightened looks at
each other, and then at the children, some of whom had begun to whimper,
when in an instant all were struck again into stone. The young man had
turned and was facing them all, with his hands held out in a clench which
in itself was horrible.

"If they let the man go," he called out in loud and threatening tones, "I
will strangle him with these two hands."

The word, and not the shriek which burst irrepressibly from more than one
woman before him, brought him to himself. With a ghastly look on his
bloated features, he scanned for one moment the row of deeply shocked
faces before him, then tottered back out of sight, and fled towards