e most fitted to
watch and form a judgment upon material phenomena. Therefore it is only
by keeping alive for these few extra hours that we can hope to carry on
with us to some future existence a clear conception of the most
stupendous event that the world, or the universe so far as we know it,
has ever encountered. To me it would seem a deplorable thing that we
should in any way curtail by so much as a minute so wonderful an
experience."

"I am strongly of the same opinion," cried Summerlee.

"Carried without a division," said Lord John. "By George, that poor
devil of a chauffeur of yours down in the yard has made his last journey.
No use makin' a sally and bringin' him in?"

"It would be absolute madness," cried Summerlee.

"Well, I suppose it would," said Lord John. "It couldn't help him and
would scatter our gas all over the house, even if we ever got back alive.
My word, look at the little birds under the trees!"

We drew four chairs up to the long, low window, the lady still resting
with closed eyes upon the settee. I remember that the monstrous and
grotesque idea crossed my mind--the illusion may have been heightened by
the heavy stuffiness of the air which we were breathing--that we were in
four front seats of the stalls at the last act of the drama of the world.

In the immediate foreground, beneath our very eyes, was the small yard
with the half-cleaned motor-car standing in it. Austin, the chauffeur,
had received his final notice at last, for he was sprawling beside the
wheel, with a great black bruise upon his forehead where it had struck
the step or mud-guard in falling. He still held in his hand the nozzle
of the hose with which he had been washing down his machine. A couple of
small plane trees stood in the corner of the yard, and underneath them
lay several pathetic little balls of fluffy feathers, with tiny feet
uplifted. The sweep of death's scythe had included everything, great and
small, within its swath.

Over the wall of the yard we looked down upon the winding road, which led
to the station. A group of the reapers whom we had seen running from the
fields were lying all pell-mell, their bodies crossing each other, at the
bottom of it. Farther up, the nurse-girl lay with her head and shoulders
propped against the slope of the grassy bank. She had taken the baby
from the perambulator, and it was a motionless bundle of wraps in her
arms. Close behind her a tiny patch upon the roads