man seemed to understand him, however, and led the way: Gerrit followed . . . brrr, brrr! . . . Nevertheless, it was as though his fever abated: and, in that sudden cooling, he all at once felt and knew the truth. It must be so: it was she. The water, the policemen, she. Who else could it be? . . . He walked on, following the porter. . . .
On either side, the silent graves, with their tomb-stones, the lettering blurred and melancholy in the rain. . . . Yonder, on the left, the family-grave. Gerrit recognized it in the purple rain of dragon's blood: a sombre mausoleum of brick, like a small house; and it looked larger to him than the toy-villa of just now. What a huge building it was, that family-tomb of theirs! It was like a great palace: it would be able to contain all their dead within its walls. For the present, Papa was living alone there, quietly; but he was waiting, waiting for all of them, waiting for all of them . . . until the shadows had deepened into thick darkness around all of them and they came to him, in that huge sepulchral palace. . . . Lord, Lord, how small he was now: he was walking like a dwarf past the tomb, which stuck its steeple into the clouds, high as a cathedral. . . .
What was that strangeness in the air? . . . How long had he been walking? . . . Was life no longer ordinary? . . . Were there not, as usual, houses, people, things: the barracks . . . his child-
