They laid the lifeless 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.