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himself, but at last walked in the end of the long line, sobbing at intervals, and once he gasped in a whisper to his companion,

"Y-you m-must excuse me, M-Mr. Ditmas. . . ."

The Reverend Blackman conducted the funeral services of the financier. In the silence of the crowd, which was touched here and there by a muffled sob, the evangelist said:

"My brothers and sisters, we stand to-day by this open grave to put away, in the eternal peace of God, a man whose life-long thought has been for the betterment of his country and his countrymen. The hairs of my head could not number the enterprises he has brought into our midst, or the charitable acts he has performed. No poor man ever appealed to him in vain for aid. No beggar was too low for his charity; no cause too remote for his sympathy.

"God, in his wisdom, my brother, has seen fit to remove David Jones from his earthly labours. A noble, unselfish life here on earth is ended. To this sad dust we must say our last farewells; but, thank God, we Christians know that in Heaven our friend and leader faces the golden sunrise of an eternal day. Dust to dust; ashes to ashes; and the soul back to the God who gave it."

Abner heard the scrape of spades and the soft spreading of the earth over the coffin. Renewed choking sobs burst forth from the family and mourners at the edge of the grave.

At some distance away, in another corner of the cemetery among the melancholy cedars, two Negroes were digging another grave. This next burial was timed to take place an hour after the financier was interred. During the ceremonies for David Jones, the two black men stood in the long rectangular hole they were digging with their poor hats off and pick and shovel at rest.

The grave they dug was not oriented east and west as were the other graves in the cemetery. It was turned at an angle to denote that it was the final resting place of a self-slayer. After the great crowd had flowed slowly back down