He turned on Neil: “And you killed him! Your crazy lies were too much for him. You’re responsible for his death, and I won’t forget it!”

Dr. Kamber ordered, “Chuck it, Bob. Your dad apparently died of a coronary. Neil had nothing to do with it. Your dad was probably proud of Neil’s courage.”

Dr. Roy Drover, president of the Federal Club, and Dr. Cortez Kelly, duck-hunting neighbor of Neil, who both had their offices in the P. & A., seemed to have crowded into that small room now, and Drover, after a good strong look of dislike at Neil, commented to Kamber, “Well, you can’t tell now, Doctor. The way Neil was cutting up may have had a bad effect on the old man. How can we be sure?”

Dr. Kelly protested, “Oh, for Pete’s sake; quit it, Roy. Neil is a fool, and I hope to see him driven out of my neighborhood, like any other nigger, but he didn’t kill the old man. Come on, Roy, let’s scram.”

The two medical gentlemen argued off down the hall, and Neil and Robert and Dr. Kamber and the shaky girl assistant silently gazed down at the unnatural silence of the man on the couch.

Neil thought of his father happily raking the leaves, last October, and prosing, “The fall is the best time of the year. It’s so peaceful. I’ve always been a busy man, even if collections are so bad, and I look forward to a lot of peace and enjoyment in the autumn of my life. I like it when I can be peaceful.”

But not peaceful like this, lying in a waiting-room, nervous hands rigid.

–-Am I his murderer? He’ll never know about the Catherine of Aragon line now, and maybe it was true. Did I kill that for him, too?

Dr. Kamber’s hand was on his shoulder, but Neil wished that Vestal were here…. And Sophie. And Mary Woolcape.

Robert was blubbering. Oldest of Dr. Kenneth’s children, he was yet the most childish and most likely to run to his father with troubles, even after he had himself become a father. He was an overgrown farm-boy, awed and afraid now, and Neil realized what his announcement of Negro kinship must have done to this simple, loving and mercenary family-man.

Then Robert Hearth, the undertaker, arrived, and from that second till the coffin sank in the January earth, the two Roberts took charge of everything. They were so much alike: equally solemn, equally efficient in the superb accomplishment of utterly childish ends, equally sure that it must be a comfort to Dr. Kenneth in the coffin to have a little, clean soft pillow under his head.

And equally certain that Neil had killed him.

* * * * *