a single gas-jet burning, and Vandover was
left alone.

The suddenness of the thing had stunned and dizzied him, and he had gone
through with all the various affairs of the day wondering at his
calmness and fortitude. Toward eleven o'clock, however, after the
suppressed excitement of the last hours, as he was going to bed, the
sense of his grief and loss came upon him all of a sudden, with their
real force for the first time, and he threw himself upon the bed face
downward, weeping and groaning. During the rest of the night pictures of
his father returned to him as he had seen him upon different occasions,
particularly three such pictures came and went through his mind.

In one the Old Gentleman stood in that very room, with the decanter in
his hand, asking him kindly if he felt very bad; in another he was on
the pier with his handkerchief tied to his cane, waving it after
Vandover as though spelling out a signal to him across the water. But in
a third, he was in the smoking-room, fallen into the leather chair, his
arm resting on the table and his head bowed upon it.

After the funeral, which took place from the house, Vandover drove back
alone in the hired carriage to his home. He would have paid the driver,
but the other told him that the undertaker looked out for that. Vandover
watched him a moment as he started his horses downhill, the brake as it
scraped against the tire making a noise like the yelping of a dog. Then
he turned and faced the house. It was near four o'clock in the
afternoon, and everything about the house was very quiet. All the
curtains were down except in one of the rooms upstairs. The butler had
already opened these windows and was airing the room. Vandover could
hear him moving about, sweeping up, rearranging the furniture, making up
the bed again. In front of him, between the horse-block and the front
door, one or two smilax leaves were still fallen, and a tuberose,
already yellow. Behind him in the street he had already noticed the
marks of the wheels of the hearse where it had backed up to the curb.

The crepe was still on the bell handle. Vandover did not know whether it
had been forgotten, or whether it was proper to leave it there longer.
At any rate he took it off and carried it into the house with him.

His father's hat, a stiff brown derby hat, flat on the top, hung on the
hatrack. This had always been a sign to Vandover that his father was at
home. The sight was so familiar, so natu