Page:Tom Beauling (1901).pdf/48



OM BEAULING sat on the floor of Judge Tyler's study and played with a set of Indian chess-men, carved of ivory (he did not break one), while the earth was being filled into his mother's grave. Between Judge Tyler and the doctor across the way, the needful had been accomplished as rapidly as possible, and, with the assistance of sister Dorothy's littleness of soul, several important things had been discussed and decided. Harmony's identity had been concealed from the village; she had been buried as a stranger, and Tom Beauling, for all the village knew, was or was not the dead stranger's legitimate child.

Judge Tyler and the doctor walked slowly back from the funeral. The problem of Tom Beauling confronted them.