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him to send up a woman to lay out the body.
‘You want a little fresh air,’ she said, ‘it’ll do you good.’
The undertaker lived half a mile away. When Philip gave
him his message, he said:
‘When did the poor old gentleman die?’
Philip hesitated. It occurred to him that it would seem
brutal to fetch a woman to wash the body while his uncle
still lived, and he wondered why Mrs. Foster had asked him
to come. They would think he was in a great hurry to kill
the old man off. He thought the undertaker looked at him
oddly. He repeated the question. It irritated Philip. It was
no business of his.
‘When did the Vicar pass away?’
Philip’s first impulse was to say that it had just happened,
but then it would seem inexplicable if the sick man lingered
for several hours. He reddened and answered awkwardly.
‘Oh, he isn’t exactly dead yet.’
The undertaker looked at him in perplexity, and he hur-
ried to explain.
‘Mrs. Foster is all alone and she wants a woman there.
You understood, don’t you? He may be dead by now.’
The undertaker nodded.
‘Oh, yes, I see. I’ll send someone up at once.’
When Philip got back to the vicarage he went up to the
bed-room. Mrs. Foster rose from her chair by the bed-side.
‘He’s just as he was when you left,’ she said.
She went down to get herself something to eat, and Philip
watched curiously the process of death. There was noth-
ing human now in the unconscious being that struggled

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