"She brought me a glass of port wine, and some sandwiches. I drank the wine eagerly, but I could not touch the food. The wine gave me a fictitious strength. After making several efforts I was able to rise and dress, the excitement of the moment and the hope of escape acting as powerful stimulants. I secured all that remained of my small fund of money, tied up a change of linen in a pocket-handkerchief, kissed the pale girl who stood cold and tearless at my side, and committing myself to the care of God, stole out into the dark night.
"I breathed again the fresh air, and my former vigour of mind returned. I felt like one just freed from prison, after having had sentence of death pronounced against him, I was once more free; I had miraculously escaped from death and danger, and silently and fervently I offered up a grateful prayer to the Heavenly Father, to whom I was indebted for such a signal act of mercy.
"You will think it strange, Geoffrey—the whim of a madman—but I felt an insatiable curiosity to witness the interment of my supposed body, to see how Alice would carry out the last act of the tragic drama.
"The wish was no sooner formed, than I prepared to carry it into execution.
"The yew shrubbery lay at the north end of the cottage, and was divided from the road, by a clipped holly hedge. A large yew tree grew out of the centre of this hedge, which had been clipped to represent a watch tower. Open spaces having been left for loop-holes. Through these square green apertures, I had often, when a boy, made war upon the blackbirds and sparrows, unseen by my tiny game.
"By creeping close to the hedge, and looking through one of these loop-holes, I could observe all that was passing within the shrubbery, without being observed by Dinah or Alice. Cautiously stealing along, for the night was intensely dark, and guiding my steps by the thick hedge, which resembled a massy green wall, I reached the angle where it turned off into the park. In this corner stood the green tower I was seeking, and climbing softly the gate which led into the spacious domain of the Monctons, I stepped upon a stone block used by the domestics for mounting horses, and thus raised several feet from the ground, I could distinctly observe, through the opening in the tree, all that was passing below.
"A faint light directly beneath me, gleamed up in the dense drizzly darkness, and shone on the hideous features of that abhorred old woman, who was leaning over a shallow grave she had just scooped out of the wet dank soil. Her arms rested on the top of the spade, and she scowled down into the pit that yawned at her feet, with a smile of derision on her thin sarcastic lips.
"'It's deep enough to hide him from the light of day. There's neither a shroud nor coffin to take up the room, and he is worn to a skeleton by his long sickness. Yes; there let him rest till the judgment-day! the worm for his mate and the cold clay for his pillow; I wish the same bed held all his accursed race. And his pale-faced, dainty mother—where is she? Does her spirit hover near, to welcome her darling to the land of dreams?'
"A light step sounded on the narrow path which led from the shrubbery to the cottage, accompanied by a dull lumbering sound.
"Dinah raised the lantern from the side of the grave, and held it up into the dark night.