rine's father. Like everything about
the Cedars, Silas Blackburn had delivered it to the swift, obliterating
fingers of time. If the old man in his selfishness had paused to gaze
beyond the inevitable fact of death, Bobby reflected, he would have
guarded with a more precious interest the drapings of his final sleep.

This necessary task on which Bobby had stumbled had made the thicket less
congenial than the house. As he walked back he forecasted with a keen
apprehension his approaching ordeal. It would, doubtless, be more
difficult to endure than Howells's experiment over Silas Blackburn's body
in the old room. Could he witness the definite imprisonment of his
grandfather in a narrow box; could he watch the covering earth fall
noisily in that bleak place of silence without displaying for Robinson
the guilt that impressed him more and more?

A strange man appeared, walking from the direction of the house. His
black clothing, relieved only by narrow edges of white cuffs between the
sleeves and the heavy mourning gloves, fitted with solemn harmony into
the landscape and Bobby's mood. Such a figure was appropriate to the
Cedars. Bobby stepped to one side, placing a screen of dead foliage
between himself and the man whose profession it was to mourn. He emerged
from the forest and saw again the leisurely weaving of the smoke shroud
above the house. Then his eyes were drawn by the restless movements of a
pair of horses, standing in the shafts of a black wagon at the court
entrance, and his ordeal became like a vast morass which offers no likely
path yet whose crossing is the price of salvation.

He was glad to see Graham leave the court and hurry toward him.

"I was coming to hunt you up, Bobby. The minister's arrived. So has
Doctor Groom. Everything's about ready."

"Doctor Groom?"

"Yes. He used to see a good deal of your grandfather. It's natural enough
he should be here."

Bobby agreed indifferently. They walked slowly back to the house. Graham
made it plain that his mind was far from the sad business ahead.

"What do you think of Paredes coming back as if nothing were wrong?" he
asked. "He ignores what happened yesterday. He settles himself in the
Cedars again."

"I don't know what to think of it," Bobby answered. "This morning Carlos
gave me the creeps."

Graham glanced at him curiously. He spoke with pronounced deliberation,
startling Bobby; for this friend expressed practically the thought that
Paredes's a