An hour later, came a gentle tap at the door.  Barton went to find Mrs. Hitchcock standing there.

“Your mother must be aroused and taken away.  My mother and I will take you to her house.  She must be cared for now.”

“Mother,” said Bart, taking her lightly in his arms, “these dear good ladies must care for you.  Let me take you out; and our dear Henry must be cared for, too.”

How unnatural his voice sounded to him!  Had he slain his brother, that he should care so little?—­that his voice should sound so hoarse and hollow?

His mother was passive in his hands,—­wearied, broken, and overwhelmed.  He carried her across a small open space, and into a large house, where her kind hostess received and cherished her as only women experienced and chastened by sorrow can.

Barton was conducted to a spacious, cool room, luxurious to his eyes; yet he felt no weariness, but somehow supernaturally strained up to an awful tension.

“Why don’t I shriek, and tear my hair, and make some fitting moan over this awful loss?  Why can’t I feel it?  O God! am I a wretch without nature, or heart, or soul?  He is dead!  Why should he die, and now, plucked and torn up by the root, just at flowering?  What a vile economy is this! what a waste and incompleteness! and the world full of drivellers and dotards, that it would gladly be quit of.  Wasn’t there space and breath for him?  Why should such qualities be so bestowed, to be so wasted?  Why kindle such a light, to quench it so soon in the dark river?  What a blunder!  Why was not I taken?”

Why?  Oh, weak, vain questioner!

He threw off part of his clothing, and lay down on the bed and slept.  He awoke, offended and grieved that the sun should shine.  Why was it not hidden by thick clouds, and why should they not weep?  But why should they, if he did not?  And what business had the birds to be glad and joyous, and the perfume of flowers to steal out on the bright air?

He knew he was wrong.  He was no longer angry and defiant, but his grief was dry and harsh, and his sensibilities creaked like a dry axle.

He found his mother tender, calm, and pitying him.  Awful as was the bereavement to her, she felt that the loss was, after all, to him.  Her strong nature, quivering and bleeding under the blow, had righted itself, and the sweet influence of faith and hope was coming up in her heart.  She saw Barton with his pallid face, and steady but bright eyes.  She knew that she never quite understood, had never quite fathomed, his nature.

Gentle voices, assuaging hands, and sweet charities were about the stricken ones; and pious hands, with all Christian observances, ministered to their beautiful dead.  Nothing more could be done; and before mid-day Barton, with his mother, started on their return, to be followed at evening by the remains of the loved one, arrayed for sepulture.