"As though he were meditating upon something else than the death of his uncle?"
"As though his thoughts were far away."
"That is all," said Badger, and Shagarach, who had apparently expected something more substantial than this, arose.
"You have officiated at hundreds of funerals, I presume, Dr. Thornton?"
"At many hundreds, sir," answered the clergyman, gravely.
"And the ordinary marks of grief, as you say, are tears?"
"It is a rare burial in which tears are not shed."
"So rare that the exceptions impress themselves upon you, like the burial of Prof. Arnold?"
"Yes, sir."
"Would you say that in this class of rare exceptions the absence of tears was always due to callousness in the mourners?"