"There is no need to say that we shall in future be strangers, and I
only hope that the example of this shockingly sudden death in the
midst of----"
His blood boiling, Piers left the room before the sentence was
finished.
Had he obeyed his conscience, he would have followed the coffin in
the clothes he was wearing, for many a time he had heard his father
speak with dislike of the black trappings which made a burial
hideous; but enforced regard for public opinion, that which makes
cowards of good men and hampers the world's progress, sent him to
the outfitter's, where he was duly disguised. With the secret tears
he shed, there mingled a bitterness at being unable to show respect
to his father's memory in such small matters. That Jerome Otway
should be buried as a son of the Church, to which he had never
belonged, was a ground of indignation, but neither in this could any
effective protest be made. Mute in his sorrow, Piers marvelled with
a young man's freshness of feeling at the forms and insincerities
which rule the world. He had a miserable sense of his helplessness
amid forces which he despised.
On the day of the inquest arrived Daniel Otway, Piers having
telegraphed to the club where he had seen his brother three years
ago. Before leaving London, Daniel had provided himself with solemn
black, of the latest cut; Hawes people remarked him with curiosity,
saying what a gentleman he looked, but whispering at the same time
rumours and doubts; for the little town had long gossiped about
Jerome, a man not much to its mind.
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