turned away to help in carrying the dead
man to his home.

The silent procession, with its awful burden, went back through the
streets, lighted yet by the pulsing glare of the fire. John walked beside
the still figure with his head bent upon his breast. That first impulse
of human exultation in a brave deed was gone; there was a horror of pity
instead. Just before they reached Tom's home, he stopped, by a gesture,
the men who bore the body.

"Oh, my people," he said, his hands stretched out to them, the snow
falling softly on his bared head, "God speaks to you from the lips of
this dead man. Listen to his words: the day or the hour knoweth no man;
and are you ready to face the judgment-seat of Christ? Oh, be not
deceived, be not deceived! Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap."

It was long past midnight when the knot of men about Tom Davis's door
dispersed; the excitement of the fire faded before that frank interest in
death, which such people have no hesitation in expressing. Society veils
it with decent reserve, and calls it morbid and vulgar, yet it is
ineradicably human, and circumstances alone decide whether it shall be
confessed.

But when the preacher came out of the house, all was quiet and deserted.
The snow, driving in white sheets down the mountains, was tinged with a
faint glow, where, in a blinding mist it whirled across the yards; it had
come too late to save the lumber, but it had checked and deadened the
flames, so that the few unburned planks only smouldered slowly into
ashes.

John had told Mrs. Davis of her loss with that wonderful gentleness which
characterized all his dealings with sorrow. He found her trying to quiet
her baby, when he went in, leaving outside in the softly falling snow
that ghastly burden which the men bore. She looked up with startled,
questioning eyes as he entered. He took the child out of her arms, and
hushed it upon his breast, and then, with one of her shaking hands held
firm in his, he told her.

Afterwards, it seemed to her that the sorrow in his face had told her,
and that she knew his message before he spoke.

Mrs. Davis had not broken into loud weeping when she heard her husband's
fate, and she was very calm, when John saw her again, after all had been
done which was needful for the dead; only moving nervously about, trying
to put the room into an unusual order. John could not bear to leave her;
knowing what love is, his sympathy for her grief was a