overpowering scent of tuberoses. From the room
beyond came the solemn words of the burial service: "I am the
resurrection and the life. He that believeth on me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live."

The words beat unbearably upon her ears. The walls of the room moved as
though they were of fabric, stirred by winds of hell. The floor
undulated beneath her feet and black mists blinded her. Her hands were
so cold that she scarcely felt the friendly, human touch on either side
of her chair.

Roger held one of her cold little hands in both his own, yearning to
share her grief, to divide it in some way; even to bear it for her. On
the other side was Doctor Conrad, profoundly moved. His science had not
yet obliterated his human instincts and he was neither ashamed of the
mist in his eyes nor of the painful throbbing of his heart. His fingers
were upon Barbara's pulse, where the lifetide moved so slowly that he
could barely feel it.

On the other side of the room, alien and apart, as always, sat Miriam.
She wore her best black gown, but her face was inscrutable. Perhaps the
lines were more sharply cut, perhaps the rough, red hands moved more
nervously than usual, and perhaps the deep-set black eyes burned more
fiercely, but no one noticed--or cared.

[Sidenote: The Minister]

The deep voice in the room beyond was vibrant with tenderness. The man
who stood near Ambrose North as he lay in his last sleep had been
summoned from town by Eloise. He did not make the occasion an excuse for
presenting his own particular doctrine, bolstered up by argument, nor
did he bid his hearers rejoice and be glad. He admitted, at the
beginning, that sorrow lay heavily upon the hearts of those who loved
Ambrose North and did not say that God was chastening them for their own
good.

He spoke of Life as the rainbow that brilliantly spans two mysterious
silences, one of which is dawn and the other sunset. This flaming arc
must end, as it begins, in pain, but, past the silence, and, perhaps, in
even greater mystery, the circle must somewhere become complete and
round back to a new birth.

Could not the God who ordained the beginning be safely trusted with the
end? Forgetting the grey mists of dawn in which the rainbow began,
should we deny the inevitable night when the arc bends down at the other
end of the world? Having seen so much of the perfect curve, could we not
believe in the circle? And should we not remember that the rainbow
itsel