ns for the
funeral, took no part in it, but stood beside the grave in dreadful
immobility. He did not mourn. He did not lament. He listened to his
friends' consolation as if it were spoken in an unknown tongue.
Nothing helped him, nothing hurt, because nothing touched him. He did
no work, opened no book, spoke no word if he could avoid it. He moved
about his house like a stranger, a captive, shrinking from his
children so that they grew afraid to come close to him. They were
bewildered and harrowed with pity. They did not know what to do. It
seemed as if it were their father and not their uncle who had died.

Every attempt to penetrate the ice of his anguish failed. He gave no
sign of why or how he suffered. Most of the time he spent alone in his
book-room, sitting with his hands in his lap, staring at the
unspeakable thought that paralysed him, the thought that was entangled
with the very roots of his creed and that glared at him with monstrous
and malignant face above the very altar of his religion--the thought
of his last prayer--the effectual prayer, the fervent prayer, the
damnable prayer that branded his soul with the mark of Cain, his
brother's murderer.

The physician grew alarmed. He feared the minister would lose his
reason in a helpless melancholia. The children were heart-broken. All
their efforts to comfort and distract their father fell down hopeless
from the mask of ice, behind which they saw him like a spirit in
prison. Daniel and Ruth were ready to give up in despair. But Esther
still clung to the hope that she could do something to rescue him.

One night, when the others had gone to bed, she crept down to the
sombre study. Her father did not turn his head as she entered. She
crossed the room and knelt down by the ink-stained table, laying her
hands on his knee. He put them gently away and motioned her to rise.

"Do not do that," he said in a dull voice.

She stood before him, wringing her hands, the tears streaming down her
face, but her voice was sweet and steady.

"Father," she said, "you must tell me what it is that is killing you.
Don't you know it is killing us too? Is it right for you to do that? I
know it is something more than uncle's death that hurts you. It is sad
to lose a brother, but there is something deeper in your heart. Tell
me what it is. I have the right to know. I ask you for mother's
sake."

He lifted his head and looked at her. His eyelids quivered. His secret
dragged dow