an himself
admits."

"Another day, Mrs. Wilcox. Of course."

"--But as we've insured against third party risks, it won't so much
matter--"

"--Cart and car being practically at right angles--"

The voices of the happy family rose high. Margaret was left alone.
No one wanted her. Mrs. Wilcox walked out of King's Cross between her
husband and her daughter, listening to both of them.

CHAPTER XI

The funeral was over. The carriages had rolled away through the soft
mud, and only the poor remained. They approached to the newly-dug shaft
and looked their last at the coffin, now almost hidden beneath the
spadefuls of clay. It was their moment. Most of them were women from the
dead woman's district, to whom black garments had been served out by Mr.
Wilcox's orders. Pure curiosity had brought others. They thrilled with
the excitement of a death, and of a rapid death, and stood in groups or
moved between the graves, like drops of ink. The son of one of them, a
wood-cutter, was perched high above their heads, pollarding one of the
churchyard elms. From where he sat he could see the village of Hilton,
strung upon the North Road, with its accreting suburbs; the sunset
beyond, scarlet and orange, winking at him beneath brows of grey; the
church; the plantations; and behind him an unspoilt country of fields
and farms. But he, too, was rolling the event luxuriously in his mouth.
He tried to tell his mother down below all that he had felt when he saw
the coffin approaching: how he could not leave his work, and yet did not
like to go on with it; how he had almost slipped out of the tree, he was
so upset; the rooks had cawed, and no wonder--it was as if rooks knew
too. His mother claimed the prophetic power herself--she had seen
a strange look about Mrs. Wilcox for some time. London had done the
mischief, said others. She had been a kind lady; her grandmother had
been kind, too--a plainer person, but very kind. Ah, the old sort was
dying out! Mr. Wilcox, he was a kind gentleman. They advanced to the
topic again and again, dully, but with exaltation. The funeral of a rich
person was to them what the funeral of Alcestis or Ophelia is to the
educated. It was Art; though remote from life, it enhanced life's
values, and they witnessed it avidly.

The grave-diggers, who had kept up an undercurrent of disapproval--they
disliked Charles; it was not a moment to speak of such things, but they
did not like Charles Wilcox--the grave-digg