“‘When I kept silence my bones waxed old. Day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me.
“‘Mine iniquities are gone over my head, as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. I am troubled. I am bowed down greatly. My sorrow is continually before me. I will declare my iniquity. I will be sorry for my sin. Forsake me not, O Lord! Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!’”
All heads were bowed. From the corner where the women sat together came the sound of suppressed sobbing.
The minister went back to his place, and folding his hands above the coffin, said:
“Let us pray.”
When the prayer was ended, the coffin was closed, and, followed by the entire assemblage, was borne to the place prepared for it.
The day was mild. A dense, soft snow was falling, through which the figures of men and women moved with phantasmal noiselessness. Dixon walked foremost by the side of the clergyman. When all was over, he raised his eyes from the icy clods of the new-made grave. The venerable man stood silent at its foot. Otherwise he was alone.
At the door of his cottage, the old man, too, left him, with a strong, long hand-pressure. He stood for some time before the door. The air was thick with the great flakes of snow, the footprints beneath the window and across the frozen field were already hidden from sight, but he knew that they were there, and always would be.
At last, very slowly and heavily, he turned and went into the house. It was cold and silent. The door of the front room stood open, and the chairs were as the people had left them. He went into the room and tried to restore things to their customary appearance. With a visible shudder he crossed the middle of the room where the coffin had stood, and threw open the windows. Then he went out, closing the door carefully. In the passage he listened a moment, but it was still silent. He knew that the child had been sent to a neighbor’s, and that he should find his wife in her own room.
He found her sitting by the window. She did not move as he entered, and he stood near her for some moments waiting vainly for some sign that she was aware of his presence. Then he spoke her name.