Beloved Husband of Agnes Willoughby Kain
Born 1860—Died 1886
Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Christopher Kain told me that he left the naked graveyard repeating it to himself, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do," conscious less of the words than of the august rhythm falling in with the pulse of his exaltation.
The velvet darkness that hangs under cloud had come down over the hill and the great marsh stretching away to the south of it. Agnes Kain stood in the open doorway, one hand on the brown wood, the other pressed to her cheek.
"You heard it that time, Nelson?"
"No, ma'am." The old man in the entrance-hall behind her shook his head. In the thin, blown light of the candelabra which he held high, the worry and doubt of her deepened on his singularly-unlined face.
"And you might well catch your death in that draft, ma'am."
But she only continued to stare out between the pillars where the lilac-hedge made a wall of deeper blackness across the night.
"What am I thinking of?" she whispered, and then: "There!"