The third afternoon, when all the country-side was ghastly in its winding-sheet of snow, and the clouds hung heavy as a pall over the stricken earth, the little funeral held its way from the lonely farm-house to the village-churchyard.  As a last tribute of respect to their mother, the two brothers drove side by side in the same sleigh.  Those who saw them said that it was a sight not to be forgotten,—­those two black figures, with their stern, pale faces, so much alike, yet so unsympathizing, sitting motionless, not even leaning on each other in that moment of grief.  So they were together, yet apart, during the ceremony that consigned the wife to the grave where five-and-twenty years before they had laid the husband.  So they were together, yet apart, when they turned their horse’s head towards their home and rode away silently into the sombre twilight.

The last person who saw them that night was Mrs. Clark.  The brothers had insisted that both she and the Irish girl should leave early in the day,—­replying to all offers of putting the house in order, that they preferred to be alone.  But on her way home after the funeral, Mrs. Clark passed the house in a friend’s sleigh and stopped a moment for her bundle, which in the hurry of the morning had been forgotten.  To her surprise, as she approached the door, she saw that there were no lights visible in any of the windows, although it was already very dark.  Thinking the brothers were in the back part of the house, she pushed open the door, which yielded to her touch, and was just about to make her way towards the kitchen, when she heard a sound in the parlor, and then these words, quite distinctly:—­

“Are you ready, James?”

“Yes,—­only one word.  It is a long account we have to settle, and it must be final.”

“It shall be.  Mine is a heavy score.  Years ago I swore to wipe it out, and now the time has come.”

Mrs. Clark’s knock interrupted them.  There was an angry exclamation, and the door was opened.  To her intense surprise, no light came from within.  She could not understand how they could settle their accounts in the darkness; but they gave her no time for reflection; an angry voice, in answer to her inquiries, bade her go on to the kitchen, and she hastened off.  There she found a single candle burning dimly; by its light she picked up her bundle, and, leaving the door open to see her way, returned to the front of the house.  Though not a nervous woman, she felt an undefined fear at the mysterious darkness and silence; and as she passed the brothers standing in the doorway, she was struck with fresh terror at the livid pallor of those two stern faces that looked out from the black shadow.  When she was going out, she heard the door of the parlor bolted within, and she rejoined her friends, right glad to be away from the sad house.

So those two men were left alone, locked into the dark room together, in the horrible companionship of their inextinguishable hatred and their own bad hearts.  It will forever remain unknown what passed between them through the long hours of that awful night, when the wind howled madly around the lightless house, and the clouds gathered blacker and thicker, shrouding it in impenetrable gloom.