These will soften
the blow, Dick."
"I wasn't there," Warrington murmured dully. His mind could accept but
one fact: his aunt had died alone, without his being at the bedside.
It rained in Herculaneum that night. The pavement in Williams Street
glistened sharply, for a wind was swinging the arc-lamps. The trees on
the Warrington lawn sighed incessantly; and drip, drip, drip, went the
rain on the leaves. Not a light shone anywhere in the house; total
darkness brooded over it. In one of the rooms a dog lay with his nose
against the threshold of the door. From time to time he whined
mournfully. In another room an Angora cat stalked restlessly back and
forth, sometimes leaping upon a chair, sometimes trotting round and
round, and again, wild-eyed and furtive, it stood motionless, as if
listening. Death had entered the house; and death, to the beast, is
not understandable.
Chapter XI
Everybody had gone down the winding road to the granite entrance of
the cemetery; the minister, the choir, the friends and those who had
come because they reveled in morbid scenes. These were curious to see
how Warrington was affected, if he showed his grief or contained it,
so that they might have something to talk about till some one else
died.
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