"May the curse of God light upon her," he murmurs, distractedly. "She robbed me of everything, and laid my life bare and desolate. My heart is a bare and empty ruin where the loathsome bats and shrieking night birds of remorse flap their ebon wings in the haunted darkness. Edith, Vera, my wronged, my murdered darlings—would God that you might have lived to forgive me for the madness that ruined your lives, and broke your tender hearts!"
No answer comes to his wild appeal from the wide and limitless spaces of the black night. Those two whom he adjures so despairingly, lie still "under the sod and the dew," deaf to his yearning calls, though he cry out ever so loudly to them, from his sore and tortured heart.
And at last, tormented with doubts, and longing to know the truth, for he cannot trust the oath of the false Marcia Cleveland, he flings himself into a passing car that goes toward the cemetery, fired with the wild resolve that he would never believe her wicked assertion until he can prove its truth—not until looking into the coffin, and calling on her loved name, he shall know that his wife is surely dead, because she is dumb to the wild and yearning cry of his heart.
A wild resolve—worthy of a madman. But Lawrence Campbell is scarcely sane to-night. Remorse and despair have driven him wild.
Gold—potent gold—what will it not buy? It opens the gates of the cemetery to the wronged, half-maddened husband and father, it throws off the heavy clods that lie between him and the face he yearns for. Quick and fast fall the rapid strokes of the spade, the dull thud of the fresh earth thrown out on the soft grass is continuous.
At last the sexton, pausing to take breath and wipe the beaded dews from his hot brow, utters a smothered cry of dismay:
"What was I thinking of to blunder so? I have made a great mistake, sir. This is the daughter's grave, not the mother's."
"No matter—go on with your work. Let me see the face of the child that I never beheld in life," Lawrence Campbell answers, resolutely.
Seeing how useless would be remonstrance the sexton bends to his task again. In a few minutes the earth is all out, but it requires the united strength of both men to raise the casket and lay it upon the upper ground.