There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction. These the mere romancist must eschew, if he do not wish to offend or disgust. They are with propriety handled only when the severity and majesty of truth sanctify and maintain them. We thrill, for example, with the most intense of "pleasurable pain" over the accounts of the Passage of the Beresina, of the Earthquake at Lisbon, of the Plague of London, of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, or of the 123 prisoners in the Black Hole at Calcutta. But in these accounts it is the fact—it is the reality—it is the history which excites. As inventions we should regard them with simple abhorrence.—EDGAR A. POE'S Tales of Mystery and Imagination.
I stood alone in the old church. How silent everything was! The great grey granite pillars, surmounted by circling arches, appeared in ghostly array before me; the high-backed pews seemed to be peopled by dim, shadowy figures, who had come back to watch me as I looked on the face of my loved. Everyone of the tablets on the wall was to me a face of warning. My footfall echoed and re-echoed, until I fancied the silent church peopled by innumerable visitants from the spirit land.
A dim light which caused weird shadows to fall across the old building, came in through the small windows, while the light of my lantern made other shadows more dark, more forbidding.
I wended my way towards the Communion, for even there Bill Tregargus's words came back to me. "She was buried in the vault under the Communion," and there I should see all that remained of the only woman I had ever loved. I passed by the reading desk, then came to the pulpit, but I did not pause either to examine the curious carvings on its front or the ancient worm-eaten wood of which it was made.
At length I stood by the Communion, and a great fear laid hold of me. Tremblingly I looked around the church. All was silent save the night winds as they moaned in the tower at the western end. Then an owl hooted dismally, and soon after I heard three distinct raps at a window, as though a large bird had tried to break the glass and thus enter the church.
What did it mean? Deborah Teague had spoken of three raps as a sign of death. To whom could it apply? To me? I was not anxious to live, and yet I shuddered.
"Perhaps I shall die," I thought, "and see my darling again; but how can I meet her? Have I not a murderer's hand and a murderer's heart?"
I turned the light of my lantern upon the altar table. and on it I saw a cloth, on which was embroidered a cross, the symbol of the Saviour's death, and this made me remember how He had spoken to a dying thief. For a moment the thought gave me comfort, but in the next I recollected that the thief was penitent, and that I had no proof he was, as I was, a murderer. And I was not penitent; I still hated Wilfred. He had robbed me of earthly happiness here and Heaven hereafter. I hated him; and I was a murderer. After that the cross brought me no comfort.
Before going to the sexton's I had provided myself with a short pointed piece of iron. It was the only instrument I could procure with which to open the vault without attracting suspicion.
I quickly found the burial place of the Mortons. A tablet was on the wall, on which were written these words:—