He came presently to a well-known undertaker's, and, stepping in, felt
more than ever the borderland-sense. In this silent house of sadness men
stepped quietly, gravely, decorously, and served you with courteous
sympathy. What was the name of the man who rowed his boat on the River
Styx? Yes! Charon! These wise-eyed grave men who continually plied their
oars between two worlds! How did they look on life? Were they hardened
to their task? Was their gentle gravity all acting? Did earthly things
appeal to them? How could they bear it all, this continual settled
sadness about the place! The awful hush! The tear-stained faces! The
heavy breath of flowers! Not all the lofty marble arches, and beauty of
surroundings, not all the soft music of hidden choirs and distant organ
up in one of the halls above where a service was even then in progress,
could take away the fact of death; the settled, final fact of death! One
moment here upon the curbstone, golden hair afloat, eyes alight with
joyous greeting, voice of laughter; the next gone, irrevocably gone,
"and the place thereof shall know it no more," Where had he heard those
words? Strange, sad house of death! Strange, uncertain life to live.
Resurrection! Where had he caught that word in carven letters twined
among lilies above the marble staircase? Resurrection! Yes, there would
need to be if there was to be any hope ever in this world!

It was a strange duty he had to perform, strange indeed for a college
boy to whom death had never come very close since he had been old enough
to understand. It came to him to wonder what the fellows would say If
they could see him here. He felt half a grudge toward Wittemore for
having let him in for all this. Poor Wittemore! By this time to-morrow
night Wittemore might be doing this same service for his own mother!

Death! Death! Death! Everywhere! It seemed as if everybody was dying!