“But there is no certainty about it in this particular case. I will tell you how these marks happened to be made. The clerk that was here last told me.
“One morning, according to him, the superintendent came in, looking very much excited and altered. He went to this book, where the entries of burials had been made on the preceding evening. This name was third from the last. Twelve had been buried. He penciled these letters there and left. People did not notice him: every body was sick or busy. At last in the evening of the next day, when they were to bury a new lot, they found the superintendent digging at the grave the third from the last. They tried to stop him, but he shouted and moaned alternately ‘Buried alive!’ ‘Buried alive!’ In fact they saw that he was crazy, and had to confine him at once.”
“Did they examine the grave?”
“Yes. The woman told my predecessor that she and her husband—who did the burying—had examined it, and found the body not only dead, but corrupt. So there’s no doubt of it. That party must have been dead at any rate.”
“Who was the woman?”
“An old woman that laid them out. She and her husband buried them.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does she stay here yet?”
“No. She left last year.”