They were burying that flesh which had been Julia Cavendish among the cypresses of the South London cemetery whither she brought back the flesh which had been Ronnie's father when Ronnie was still a lad.

To all save three of the mourners it appeared as though death had conquered scandal, as though their every personal enmity were being laid to rest. But to James Wilberforce, standing at the brink of the grave, it appeared that he stood on the brink of a scandal so tremendous that nothing except the combined brains of Wilberforce, Wilberforce & Cartwright could prevent a social catastrophe, a regular holocaust of public reputations; his own, possibly, and Mollie's of a certainty, included.

Covertly, James Wilberforce looked at the semicircle of facts gathered round the white-surpliced clergyman. All Julia's family--Benthams, Edwardses, Robinsons; all her literary friends--Paul Flower, Dot Fancourt, Jack Coole, Robert Backwell, the Binneys; most of her many acquaintances among the various circles with which she had been intimate, were there to do her the last honor.

A little aloof stood the reporters; and at them James Wilberforce looked, too. "God knows what the newspapers won't say if this thing isn't hushed up," thought Jimmy.

The letter of the dead, those four handwritten sheets in their bulky envelope which Mrs. Sanderson had handed to him immediately on his arrival at Daffadillies, burned the solicitor's pocket. He thought how cleverly, yet how unwisely "the old lady's" plans had been laid; how, by adding a certain codicil to her will, she had made it virtually impossible for her executors to save the situation.

The clergyman was reading. "Man that is born of woman," read the clergyman, "hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery." "O holy and most merciful Savior, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death."

Jimmy's thoughts wandered. "I wonder if I ought to tell Mollie," he thought. "I wonder if we ought to get married at once. I wonder how the devil we're going to break things to Mollie's sister. I wonder Mollie's sister didn't come to the funeral. Better not, I suppose."

The coffin on its canvas slings sank from sight into the moss-lined grave. It touched the bottom of the grave; and the slings relaxed.

"Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy," read the clergyman, as Ronnie sprinkled a handful of earth on the coffin-lid. "From henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; even so saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labors."

James Wilberforce's mind came back to the ceremony. He looked at his friend. "Poor Ronnie," he mused, "his labors are only just begun." And so musing, Jimmy's gaze fell on a bearded man with an old-fashioned top-hat in his hand, who held himself very erect and a little apart from the remainder of the mourners.

"Rather sporting of Rear-Admiral Billy B. to turn up," thought James Wilberforce.