"Anne Atherton's case was a peculiar one. They had called it quick consumption, for want of a better name. She always persisted in saying that she had swallowed something sharp like a pin, and that it had entered her left lung; but of all her physicians, Doctor Marks was the only one who believed it possible that she might be right. On the strength of this half agreement he had proposed the examination.
"The South cemetery, just outside the city, used to be the paradise of body-snatchers. It was in a lonesome neighborhood, and two sides bordered on the open country. Many a grave in that cemetery had given up its dead to the dissecting-knife, while the bereaved ones at home little dreamed that its sacred rest had been disturbed. The Athertons had a lot there, and Anne was buried in it. We covered the new-made grave with evergreens, wreath linked in wreath, the whole sprinkled with white flowers—a pretty counterpane for the fair sleeper below.
"It was five minutes past nine in the evening when I vaulted over the stone wall, and walked down the central avenue. The Atherton lot was not far from the entrance, and instead of a high fence, with gate and lock like the others, it was surrounded only by a low rim of granite. As I approached, I saw the tall, white monument in the centre, and John Sharon leaning against it, and looking down on the wreath-covered mound at his feet. He started when he heard my step, and came to meet me, taking my hand in a strong, cold clasp.
"'We will sit here,' he said, leading me to a shady nook at the other side of the avenue.
"The place he had selected was a grove of Norway spruces which formed a half-circle, the open side facing the Atherton lot, and not more than two rods distant from it. Thoughtful for my comfort, though indifferent to his own, John had thrown a shawl over the horizontal slab of marble in the centre of this grave, and on that we seated ourselves. He had brought, too, a little flask of brandy, which he pressed into my hand, but would not taste of himself. It did not come amiss; for the season was the last of October, and the night chilly, though clear and calm.
"I asked John what he meant to do if the doctor should make his appearance.
"'I shall frighten him,' he said. 'I have my pistol here, and mean to fire it. I couldn't bear to have a fight over her grave.'
"We sat there and awaited in silence, John with his eyes fixed on the mound across the way. The last ray of the setting moon touched with a white lustre its wreaths, and every little ghost of a flower, then slipped up the shaft of marble near by, pointed with a luminous finger to the 'rest in peace,' engraven there, showed name after name, and date after date, stole up the cross at the top, lingered an instant on its summit, then melted into the air. Following its flight with my glance, I saw that the sky was of a pale, transparent gray, with a few large stars in it. Clearly out against this background stood the roofs and spires of that sleeping city that breathed while it slept, and more clearly yet the monuments, and a fine tracery of the bare trees, branch, stem, and twig showing delicate as lace-work, of that nearer city which slept in awful, breathless silence, never stirring for sunrise nor sunset, never starting at any alarm, nor opening its eyes, let who would go by.
"The evening had been calm, but as it grew toward midnight a faint and fitful breeze came now and then, like a sigh, setting that net-work of branches in a shiver, and sweeping the dry leaves about with a low and mournful rustling. The place and time, the silence that was only broken by that weird and spirit-like wind, and yet more, the face of my companion, affected me strongly. John sat leaning slightly forward, his hands clasped on his knees, his gaze fixed on that grave he had come to watch, and as motionless as any stone about us. The frozen look of his face chilled me. I could not see nor hear that he breathed; and there was no movement of an eyelid even. I would have spoken to him if I had dared. I longed for some sound which would startle him out of that trance; but there he sat motionless, apparently lifeless.
"I took a swallow of brandy and tried to occupy my thoughts otherwise. I looked through the interstices of the trees near me and counted grave-stones. Close by were two old sunken graves with slate stones leaning awry at their heads, where lay, or had lain, grandfather and grandmother Sawyer—a later John Anderson and his wife, who had gone, hand in hand, up and down the hill, and now slept thegither at the foot. I say they had lain there; for, in the fifty odd years since their burial, it was most probable that their dust had left its place beneath those tumble-down slate stones and gone about other business, rising, may be, in grasses and flowers. Not much of the old couple left in their coffins, be sure. Perhaps the children had carried the last of them away in violets and mayweed, that very summer. Possibly the birds had pecked them up, in one shape or another.