nd from behind which no word
ever comes. He said that life was a rainbow spanning brilliantly the
two silences, that man's ceasing was no more strange than his
beginning, and that the God who ordained the beginning had also
ordained the end. He said, too, that the love which gave life might
safely be trusted with that same life, at its mysterious conclusion.
At length, he struck the personal note.

"It is hard for me," Thorpe went on, "to perform this last service for
my friend. All of you are my friends, but the one who lies here was
especially dear. He was a man of few friendships, and I was privileged
to come close, to know him as he was.

"His life was clean, and upon his record there rests no shadow of
disgrace." At this Ralph, in the upper hall, buried his face in his
hands. Miss Evelina sat quietly, to all intents and purposes unmoved.

"He was a brave man," Thorpe was saying; "a valiant soldier on the
great battlefield of the world. He met his temptations face to face,
and conquered them. For him, there was no such thing as cowardice--he
never shirked. He met every responsibility like a man, and never
swerved aside. He took his share, and more, of the world's work, and
did it nobly, as a man should do.

"His brusque manner concealed a great heart. I fear that, at times,
some of you may have misunderstood him. There was no man in our
community more deeply and lovingly the friend of us all, and there is
no man among us more noble in thought and act than he.

"We who have known him cannot but be the better for the knowing. It
would be a beautiful world, indeed, if we were all as good as he. We
cannot fail to be inspired by his example. Through knowing him, each
of us is better fitted for life. We can conquer cowardice more easily,
meet our temptations more valiantly, and more surely keep from the sin
of shirking, because Anthony Dexter has lived.

"To me," said Thorpe, his voice breaking, "it is the greatest loss,
save one, that I have ever known. But it is only through our own
sorrow that we come to understand the sorrow of others, only through
our own weaknesses that we learn to pity the weakness of others, and
only through our own love and forgiveness that we can ever comprehend
the infinite love and forgiveness of God. If any of you have ever
thought he wronged you, in some small, insignificant way, I give you my
word that it was entirely unintentional, and I bespeak for him your
pardon