There is little that is beautiful in death, save, perhaps, in the faces of children, and those taken in the heyday of their youth. As in life the majority of mortals are ugly and grotesque, so in death the body grows in repulsiveness as it nears the grave. The lily corpse with the angelic smile is rarely seen, save perhaps by irresponsible poets. Blotched and stiff, shrunken or inflated, the nameless thing welcomes putrefaction and decay. Beauty of outline is lost to the limbs, the bones show at the joints, the muscles stand out in stiff and unnatural relief. Nothing but the glamour of sentiment preserves this ruined tabernacle of the flesh from being designated as a “carcass.”

At Boland’s Farm the house had that sickly and indescribable smell of death. Farmer Baxter’s bullocks grazed peacefully in the great fourteen-acre lot to the east of the garden; the hens clucked and scratched in the rickyard; the pigs sucked and paddled in the swill. The laborers were at work as though their master was still alive to curse them across fields and hedgerows. The soil pays no heed to death; it is a natural occurrence; only we human beings elevate it into an incident of singularity and note. The farm-hands who passed through the yard cast curious and awed looks at the darkened windows of the house. Mrs. Baxter had given them their orders, and they knew there would be no shirking where that lady was concerned.

A couple of traps were standing before the garden gate, and in the death-chamber two intent figures bent over the bed that had been drawn close to the open window. The sun shone upon the body, a mere mountain of flesh, loathsome, gaping, flatulent, lying naked from loins to chin. In death this carcass seemed to dishonor all the higher aspirations of the race. A myriad organisms were usurping the tissues that had worked the will of what men call “the soul.”

Dr. Brimley, of Cossington, a little, spectacled cherub of a man, held back the yellow flaps of fat-laden skin while his confrère groped and delved within the cavity. There was a wrinkle of disgust about Parker Steel’s sharp mouth. He had never vanquished that loathing of contact with the nauseous slime of death. The cold and succulent smoothness of the inert tissues repelled his cultured instincts. Yet even the superfine sneer vanished from about his nostrils as he drew out a black and oozing object from the dead man’s body.

“Good God, Brimley, look at this!”

The spectacled cherub peered at it, puckered up his lips and gave a whistle.

“A sponge!”

“Nice mess, eh?”

“Relieved that I haven’t the responsibility.”

Steel’s delicate hands were at work again. A sharp exclamation of surprise escaped him as he drew out a pair of artery forceps, and held them up to Brimley’s gaze.

“This is a pretty business!”

Dr. Brimley’s eyes seemed to enlarge behind his spectacles.

“Confoundedly unpleasant for the operator. The man must have lost his head.”

“Put your hand in here,” and Parker Steel guided his confrère’s fingers into the cavity, “tell me what you feel.”

Brimley groped a moment, and then elevated his eyebrows.

“Good Lord!—what was Murchison at? A rent in the bowel three inches long!”

“We had better have a look at it.”

And the evidence of the sense of vision confirmed the evidence of the sense of touch.

Both men perched themselves on the bed, and looked questioningly into each other’s eyes. Success demands the survival of the fittest, and in the scramble for gold and reputation men may ignore generosity for egotistical and self-serving cant. Parker Steel did not determine to act against his rival, without a struggle. He remembered his wife’s words, and they decided him.

“What are you going to do?”

Parker Steel looked Dr. Brimley straight in the face.

“There is only one thing to be done,” he retorted.

“Well, sir, well?”

“I have no personal grudge against Murchison, but before God, Brimley, I can’t forgive him this abominable bungling. Professional feeling or no, I can’t stretch my conscience to such a lie.”

Dr. Brimley stared and nodded. He was somewhat impressed by Steel’s cultured indignation, a professional Brutus waxing public-spirited over C?sar’s body. Moreover, he was no friend of Murchison’s, and was secretly pleased to hear another man assume the moral responsibility of injuring his reputation.

“So you will tell the old lady?”

“I take it to be a matter of duty.”

“Quite so; I agree with you, Steel. But it will about smash Murchison.”

Parker Steel moved to the wash-stand and began to rinse his hands.

“I cannot see how I can give a death certificate,” he said; “the man must have been drunk. It is a case for the coroner.”

Dr. Brimley puckered his chubby mouth and whistled.

“There is no other conclusion to accept,” he answered.

Mrs. Baxter was awaiting the two gentlemen in the darkened parlor, dressed in her black silk Sabbath gown. She had a photograph-album on her knee, and was chastening her grief by referring to the faded pictures of the past. Each photograph stood for a season in the late farmer’s life. Tom Baxter as a fat and plethoric-looking youth of twenty, in a braided coat and baggy trousers, one hand on a card-board sundial, the other stuffed into a side-pocket. Tom Baxter, ten years later, in his Ye............