ing eyes. Wind howling through bent branches. A
wind which never dies down. Howling, wailing. The gazing eyes glitter
in the sunlight. The lids are frozen open and the eyes glitter.

The thudding of a pick on hard earth. A spade grinding and crunching.
Overhead, branches writhing, winding, interlacing, unwinding,
scattering; tortured twinings, tossings, creakings. Wind flinging
branches apart, drawing them together, whispering and whining among
them. A waning, lopsided moon cutting through black clouds. A stream
of pebbles and earth and the empty spade gleams clear in the moonlight,
then is rammed again into the black earth. Tramping of feet. Men and
horses. Squeaking of wheels.

"Whoa! Ready, Jim?"

"All ready."

Something falls, settles, is still. Suicides have no coffin.

"Give us the stake, Jim. Now."

Pound! Pound!

"He'll never walk. Nailed to the ground."

An ash stick pierces his heart, if it buds the roots will hold him. He
is a part of the earth now, clay to clay. Overhead the branches sway,
and writhe, and twist in the wind. He'll never walk with a bullet in
his heart, and an ash stick nailing him to the cold, black ground.

Six months he lay still. Six months. And the water welled up in his
body, and soft blue spots chequered it. He lay still, for the ash stick
held him in place. Six months! Then her face came out of a mist of
green. Pink and white and frail like Dresden china, lilies-of-the-valley
at her breast, puce-coloured silk sheening about her. Under the young
green leaves, the horse at a foot-pace, the high yellow wheels of the
chaise scarcely turning, her face, rippling like grain a-blowing, under
her puce-coloured bonnet; and burning beside her, flaming within his
correct blue coat and brass buttons, is someone. What has dimmed the
sun? The horse steps on a rolling stone; a wind in the branches makes a
moan. The little leaves tremble and shake, turn and quake, over and
over, tearing their stems. There is a shower of young leaves, and a
sudden-sprung gale wails in the trees.

The yellow-wheeled chaise is rocking--rocking, and all the branches
are knocking--knocking. The sun in the sky is a flat, red plate, the
branches creak and grate. She screams and cowers, for the green foliage
is a lowering wave surging to smother her. But she sees nothing. The
stake holds firm. The body writhes, the body squirms. The blue spots
widen, the flesh tears, but the stake w