"Where is the body!" responded the aunt. "Why, George, where should it be but in C—— churchyard, beneath the stone that has told the virtues of her ancestors, and will, in a short time, declare her own, greater than those of her kindred that have gone before?"
"It is on Dr M——'s table!" cried the youth, starting to his feet, and again throwing himself violently on the chair. "I purchased it; paid the price for it; and recognised it only when the dissecting-knife was in my hand!" Every one started aghast; terror froze up the issues of speech; a deep groan issued from the bed-ridden patient; he beckoned me to his ear. "Tell the women to go out," he whispered, as he twisted his body convulsively among the bedclothes.
I complied with his request; and the aunt, seizing Martha, who stood as if she had been transfixed to the floor, dragged her out of the room. In the passage, I heard a loud scream; and, in a moment, all was again silence. Mr B——, without uttering a word, raised his feeble body from the bed, and came forth, the spectre of what he was only a few weeks before. His limbs, which were reduced to bony shanks, covered with shrivelled skin, seemed totally unable to support even the decayed, emaciated frame. He staggered as he reached the floor; but, recovering himself, stood firm, and then proceeded to his wardrobe, from which he drew his vestments, and proceeded to attire himself.
"An hour since," he said, in a slow, solemn voice, "I thought these clothes would never again be on my body. My only hope was the winding-sheet, and that grave which has been robbed."
"George may have been deceived," said I, as he was proceeding to dress himself. "I have often thought that I saw resemblances to deceased friends in the features of subjects in the dissecting-room."
"The grave will test it," answered he, with a deep groan, as he proceeded slowly, but resolutely, to put one garment after another on his skeleton body.
He was at length dressed; and, proceeding to the kitchen, he appeared again, in a short time, with a lighted lantern in his hand, the light of which, as it threw its beam on his sallow face—for the candle had, meanwhile, burned down into the socket—exhibited, in its lurid glare, the deep-sunken eyes and protruding bones of his emaciated countenance.
"Come, we shall proceed to the grave of my Isabella," said he.
"You are unable," said I. "Your limbs will not carry you that length; and you are, besides, unfitted by the state of your mind and feelings, for an investigation of this kind. Stay here with your son, and I will go to the churchyard and satisfy myself of the deception under which George, doubtless, labours."
"I feel now more than my former strength," he replied. "I am awakened from a death-stupor of the soul; and I feel that within me which will enable me to go through this trial. I will look into my Isabella's grave; will meet with those eyes again—that countenance through which I have read the workings of love in a spirit that is now far from the precincts of the clay. Deny me not; I will be satisfied of this, if I should come back from her grave to complete that which is begun, and is already visible in these shrunken members, that now obey a supernatural power."