When all was at an end he could not be drawn away until his father took him by the arm and said in a firm voice, "Come." Then with a stronger step he walked with a remnant of the broken procession across the little cemetery--the hummocked home-field of the dead--through the gate to the road--where Hans, the water-carrier in the sleeveless waistcoat Thora had made for him, was giving water to her horse--past the Factor's house--where Aunt Margret watched at a window with the baby in her arms--and thus back to his empty home.
At the foot of the stairs he excused himself when the mourners went in to their meal, and he was seen no more that day.
The dinner was a cheerless thing, being served in the room that had witnessed the home-coming, and so chilled with memories of that happier event. Silently, or in whispers, the mourners bade their adieus and crept away one by one, leaving the few remaining members of the two families with wide spaces between them at the table like gaps in a toothless skull.
The Governor and the Factor had not spoken since their return from the Proclamation, and the interval of silence had made the rift between the two old friends grow wide.
"Ah, well!" yawned the Factor, "it's all over, I suppose."
Then he turned to the Governor and asked sharply, "Where is Magnus? I've seen nothing of him to-day."
The Governor did not answer and Anna dropped her head, and then Helga, who was the only other person present, said quietly:
"Somebody saw him at the Hotel--he did right not to come to the funeral--they say he was not quite sober."
"Just like him," said the Factor. "A yell is all you hear of a wolf, and but for his last drinking bout, perhaps nothing of this would have happened."
The Governor's proud face quivered, but he did not speak, and soon afterward the Factor and Helga went away.