I
tried to say something about his being very ill. It brought on his cough
again, and for a moment I thought he would die then and there. But when
the attack was over, he asked me if I couldn't hear that the cough was
much better. What do you think I ought to do?"

"Nothing," the father replied once more.

Keith was ready to start for school next morning when he heard Hilda
utter a startled cry in the parlour.

"Fru Wellander! Fru Wellander!" she called.

Before the mother had a chance to move, the frightened face of the girl
appeared in the parlour door, and she whispered as if afraid of waking
some one out of sleep:

"He is dead."

Both women hurried into the parlour. Keith stood irresolute for a
moment. Then he made for the kitchen door and ran downstairs at top
speed. He was afraid of missing Murray.

All during that day a thought would bother his brain like a buzzing fly:
how peculiar that a man could want to order a new suit of clothes a few
hours before he died. There was something irrational about it that
stumped him. For a moment he thought of speaking to Murray about it, but
it was as if some one had put a hand firmly over his mouth every time he
tried to do so.

The funeral took place in a couple of days. A distant relative had
turned up, very apologetic and eager to explain that his dead cousin had
failed to let any one know that he was sick even. This young man, the
minister, and Keith's parents were the only mourners. A single
carriage sufficed.

Keith never went into the parlour during those days. When everything was
nearly ready, the mother asked him if he cared to go in and have a last
look at poor Herr Stangenberg before the lid was put on the coffin.
Keith merely shook his head.

"You had better go," Granny called from the kitchen. "I never saw him
better-looking while he was alive."

"I won't," Keith yelled back with an amount of irritation that seemed
quite out of proportion to its cause. The mother gave him an uneasy
glance but left the room without saying anything at the time.

As far as the boy was concerned, the incident was closed. He had never
permitted it to take a real hold of his mind, and he resented anybody's
attempt to bring it closer to him. Death had stopped within his own
threshold, and he simply looked in the opposite direction. This attitude
sprang mainly from some inner resistance so stubborn that it would not
even permit itself to be discussed. In addition, his mi