“In the box under our bed,” repeated David carefully.  “Yes, under the bed.  I will remember.”

“And this, David,” holding up piles of white linen, “this is for me.  You will not forget?”

“For you?” he queried, not understanding.

“Yes,” she answered softly.  “I will be buried in this.”

He started, but recovered himself with a quivering lip.

“Of course,” he answered.  “I will see to it.  I must be very old, Christina.”

She came over and kissed him on the forehead.

In the middle of the afternoon she went to bed, and he came in and sat beside her.  She held his hand, and smiled at him.

“Are you dying now?” he asked at length.

“Yes,” she said.  “What shall I tell Frikkie and the kleintje from you?”

“Tell them nothing,” he said, after a pause.  “It cannot be that I shall be apart from you all long.  No; I am very sure of that.”

She pressed his hand, and soon afterwards felt some pain.  It was little, and she made no outcry.  Her death was calm and not strongly distressing, and the next day David put her into the ground where her sons lay.

But, as I have made clear, he did not die till long afterwards, when he had sold his farm and come to live in the little white house in the dorp, where colors jostled each other in the garden, and fascinated children watched him go in and come out.  I think the story explains that perpetual search of which his vacant eyes gave news, and the joyous alacrity of his last home-coming, and the perfect technique of his death.  It all points to the conclusion, that however brave the figures, however aspiring their capers, they but respond to strings which are pulled and loosened elsewhere.

XII

THE HIDDEN WAY

A veil ’twixt us and Thee, dread Lord, A veil ’twixt us and Thee!  Lest we should hear too clear, too clear, And unto madness see.

Carrick crossed the fields in time to see, from the low bank above the churchyard, the children coming forth from Sunday school in the church, blinking contentedly at the late summer sunlight and all the familiar world from which, for two hours, they had been exiles.  A little behind them came Mr. Newman, carrying his sober hat in his hand, and the curate.

“Hi!” called Carrick, and they turned toward him as he came down the bank, with his sly spaniel shambling at his heels.

The curate looked with disfavor at Carrick’s worn tweed clothes and his general week-day effect.  “I think,” he said primly, “I’ll be getting along.”

“I should,” said Carrick shortly, turning his back on him.  “I want to speak to you, Newman.”

“Then we will walk together,” agreed Mr. Newman.  “Good-bye till this evening,” he called after the departing curate.