When the train from Colon came in, Miss Proudleigh was one of the first to step on to the platform, closely followed by her niece and brother. The old man was dressed in a suit once black, but now of a greenish tint and shiny as though it had been polished; he also wore a bowler hat of a pattern that had probably been fashionable thirty years before, but of which few specimens could at this time have been extant.

Catherine and her aunt were attired in white ironed dresses and new straw hats trimmed with black ribbon. Samuel saw that they had come ready-dressed for the funeral, which must take place on the following morning. The severity of Miss Proudleigh’s demeanour indicated that she was about to officiate at a very important function, and the large straw fan which she carried in her right hand would have informed anyone who knew the lady that she had not brought forth her favourite symbol of authority without a determination to establish her claim to precedence and power at any cost.

Jones approached the little group. “I was waiting for you,” he said.

“Then you mean to tell me y’u not arrested?” was the startling question of Miss Proudleigh. “There seems to be no law at all in Panama!”

She edged away from Jones as she spoke, looking as she did so towards an American policeman who was strolling about the platform.

“What am I to be arrested for?” asked the young man, surprised. “What’s the matter with you’ aunt?” he said to Catherine. “She takin’ leave of her senses?”

“Didn’t you’ telegram say that Mackenzie dead?” asked Catherine.

“Yes; but what is that to do with me?”

“I know it wasn’t you dat kill him, me son,” Mr. Proudleigh now observed. “When I get you’ telegram, I said to meself: ‘Mister Jones is a man like me. Him talk a lot, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly: him is too afraid of de court-house.’ But Deborah would insist it was you dat kill Mackenzie, for you leave the house last night in a blind temper, an’ you come up here to-day, an’ Mackenzie dead very sudden.”

“It is very suspicious,” said Miss Proudleigh. “I don’t understand it at all.”

“Well, it is not everything y’u can understand,” said Catherine practically; “and it couldn’t be Mr. Jones that kill Mackenzie, otherwise him would be in jail.”

“Dat is so,” agreed her father; “only, I hear dat in Panama y’u can pay ten dollars an’ kill anybody you like.”

“That is all stupidness,” said Jones impatiently; “it is the Canal that kill Mackenzie, not me. What was I goin’ to kill him for?”

A snort from Miss Proudleigh was her only comment on this speech. She was not willing to be persuaded that Mackenzie had not been a victim of the machinations of Samuel and her niece.

As they went on, Jones explained how Mackenzie had come by his death, and how he himself had been a witness of the tragedy. All of them had heard before of the lives which the Culebra Cut had claimed, and now as Jones spoke doubts rose once more in the minds of Mr. Proudleigh and his sister as to the wisdom and propriety of human beings attempting to unite two oceans.

“I always thought that some great disaster would occur because of the iniquity of man in trying to join what God separate,” said Miss Proudleigh; “but I never dream that de disaster was to come on me own family; for, after all, Mackenzie was my nephew-in-law.”

But she did not seem unduly oppressed by the calamity. She found abundant comfort in the prospect of a funeral, and in the opportunity now given her of bewailing in public her irreparable loss. She could now proclaim her past forebodings and hint at other tragedies that would shortly follow upon this one. Properly managed, this funeral could not fail to afford some edifying exhibitions of religious fortitude, Christian resignation, and personal piety, mingled discreetly with an insulting attitude towards those whom she might happen to dislike.

As for Mr. Proudleigh, at that moment he was chiefly afflicted with fears for his personal safety. If a landslide or something like it could kill Mackenzie, there was nothing to prevent a landslide from killing him. This was a dangerous country.

“We will have to leave this place as soon as poor Mackenzie is in de grave,” he remarked, as he laboured on. “What y’u goin’ to do wid you’self, Mister Jones?”

“When?”

“To-morrow. After we bury me son-in-law.”

“I don’t know,” said Jones.

“You staying up here wid Miss Susan?”

“That would not be proper,” observed Miss Proudleigh sternly. “It is none of my business, an’ I don’t want to interfere. But if the day after Mackenzie bury, a young man should stay in the same place with the widder, them will put her out of any church she belong to.”

“I don’t think Susan can stay here much longer, now that Mackenzie is dead,” said Jones. “She will have to leave soon, for the American people will want the premises.”

“Well, she better come back to Colon wid me,” said Mr. Proudleigh; “an’ now that Mac is dead, Mister Jones——”

But Samuel, guessing the nature of the old man’s forthcoming proposition, hastily interrupted him with another recital of that day’s tragedy. He was still speaking when they arrived at Susan’s house.

All the doors and windows were open, and three or four persons were moving about within. These were friendly neighbours who had come over to help Susan with her dead.

She was expecting her family. As a matter of fact she had telegraphed to them. But having received Jones’s message earlier, they had left for Culebra before Susan’s telegram was delivered at their house.

She was very quiet and composed. When the news of Mackenzie’s death had been broken to her she had shrieked in terror. Her first thought was that there had been a fight between Samuel and her husband, and that the latter had been murdered. A few words of explanation relieved her mind of this horrible fear, then she wept bitterly as if stricken to the heart. She had never cared greatly for her husband; but his sudden death, the overwhelming memory of how, that very day, she had had to fight against the temptation to abandon him, the recollection of all his kindnesses, touched her to genuine sorrow and regret. She recovered her self-possession a little later on and straightway set about making preparations for the funeral. She was still engaged on these when Samuel and her family arrived.

She hardly appeared to notice Jones, who kept himself in the background. She suffered herself to be embraced by her father, who thought it proper to assure her that he had hastened to comfort her, though he himself was grief-stricken and could not say when he should be able to take an interest in life any more. Mr. Proudleigh then deposited his hat on a table and elaborately wiped his eyes. This ceremony being gone through, he sat down.

But Miss Proudleigh would not sit down. She took Susan by the hand. “It is the will of God,” she loudly proclaimed, “an’ men can only say, ‘Thy will be done.’ We must be prepared to meet our God. We must take up our cross an’ follow Him. Husband-o, son-o, mother-o, wife-o, when the call come we must give them all up to Him who gave them life. We cannot rebel, for the Lord gave an’ the Lord taketh away—blessed be the name of the Lord. We cannot prevent the tears from flowing, for that is nature; but the heart must be submissive.”

She paused to note the effect of her words, which she considered sufficiently stirring to move Susan to tears and the other people in the house to sympathy. But most of the people there did not know Miss Proudleigh and were paying no attention to her; Susan remained dry-eyed; Catherine appeared unsympathetic. Only her brother seemed attentive, and as she did not regard him as an audience worth having, she concluded that spiritual consolations had better be reserved for a later occasion.

“You can go into the dining-room an’ wash you’ hands an’ face if you like, Aunt Deborah,” said Susan quietly. “It is fixed up.”

“What about the body?” demanded Miss Proudleigh.

“The body fixed up already. Everything is arranged. Some of Mackenzie’s friends looking after the funeral.”

It was bitterly disappointing to Miss Proudleigh to find that she had been forestalled; still, opportunities for usefulness might present themselves later on. She went into the dining-room as invited, feeling that Susan’s calmness was most unbecoming at such a moment. A widow, with a proper sense of what was expected of her, should have given way to a wild outburst of grief at the sight of her sympathizing family.

Presently Susan asked her aunt to go into the room where Mackenzie’s body was laid out. Mackenzie had been struck mainly by descending masses of earth; thus he had escaped disfigurement. Miss Proudleigh glanced at the set face, saying with real feeling, “Poor fellow; just as if he was sleeping.” Then she mastered this inclination to weakness, and, laying her hand upon the cold, sheeted figure, she shook her head determinedly. “Not enough ice,” she said.

“Quite enough,” replied one of Susan’s helpers, a young woman who had developed a marked fondness for assisting at funerals.

“You will excuse me,” said Miss Proudleigh with great firmness. “I bury a lot of my relatives an’ friends, an’ therefore it stands to reason that I must know about de treatment of corpses.

“Mr. Mackenzie was my nephew-in-law, an’ I know he would like to bury decently an’ in a good condition; in consequence of which I would advise his wife to take my foolish advice an’ get some more ice. Susan, ’ave you a little gurl?”

“One is outside,” Susan answered.

“Send ’er for more ice!”

“All right, Aunt Deborah,” said Susan resignedly; “you can send ’er.”

This was a victory of considerable importance; it placed Miss Proudleigh in charge of all arrangements affecting the corpse. She adapted her voice to suit her new dignity and now spoke in impressive stage whispers.

But where was Samuel? Susan had lost sight of him; he had quietly slipped out of the house after observing how she was conducting herself; he was glad to see her calm and collected, but a certain delicacy of feeling warned him that he should not remain in the house just now. He was damp and dirty; but there were shops in the town where he could buy some ready-made clothing. He bought a suit and was allowed to put it on in a room behind the shop; if it did not fit him well, at least it was clean and dry.

The day’s work was over in the Cut; everybody he met was talking about the accident. He noticed that they all spoke well of Mackenzie; he wondered whether, if he had died like Mackenzie, his acquaintances would have spoken like that of him.

The rain had ceased entirely, but the sky was sombre still. He remembered that he had eaten nothing from morning, but he had no appetite, did not feel like eating. He lingered about the houses and the shops till long after darkness had fallen. At about eight o’clock, he went back to Susan’s house.

He entered and silently took one of the many chairs that had been borrowed from friendly neighbours for the accommodation of the people who had come and were coming to sit up for a few hours with Susan. Every one was quiet and reverential, and those who talked did so in low and mournful tone.

A solitary light was burning in the room where the body of the dead man lay. Those who wished to do so, stole into the room and peeped at it, then stole back gloomily to their seats. The subdued conversation was ab............