"Yes," she said stoutly, though I know she quailed, "I would. Now you'll admit that I'm not superstitious."
"Yes," I said, and here I offer no excuse. The devil entered into me, and though I see now what a brute beast I was, I cannot be sorry. "I own that you are not superstitious. How dark it is growing. The ivy has broken the stone away just behind your head: there is quite a large hole in the side of the tomb. No, don't move, there's nothing there. If you were superstitious you might fancy, on a still, dark, sweet evening like this, that the dead man might wake and want to come up out of his coffin. He might crouch under the stone, and then, trying to come out, he might very slowly reach out his dead fingers and touch your neck. Ah!"
The awakened wind had moved an ivy spray to the suggested touch. She sprang up with a cry, and the next moment she was clinging wildly to me, as I held her in my arms.
"Don't cry, my dear, oh, don't! Forgive me, it was the ivy."
She caught her breath.
"How could you! how could you!"
And still I held her fast, with—as she grew calmer—a question in the clasp of my arms, and, presently, on my lips.
"Oh, my dear, forgive me! And is it true—do you?—do you?"
"Yes—no—I don't know.... No, no, not through my veil, it is so unlucky!"