Gaining the summit of the hill, I perceived, a little way before me, a dark figure, receding slowly; but so intent was I on the superhuman, that I paid little attention to the human; though afterward, in recalling the circumstance, the individual previously seen while I sat on the bridge became in some way associated with this.
How hushed and solemn the graveyard seemed! I was half afraid, as I looked in—quite startled, in fact, when latching and unlatching the gate, to determine whether the sound I had heard were that or not, a rabbit, roused from its light sleep, under the fallen grass, sped fleetly across the still mounds to the safer shelter of the woods. I saw nothing else, save that the grass was trampled to a narrow path leading towards Mary's grave.
During the summer, I sometimes saw the young girl in the woods, and I noticed that she neither gathered flowers nor sang with the birds; but would sit for hours in some deep shadow, without moving her position in the least, not even to push away the light curls which the wind blew over her cheeks and forehead, as they would. She seemed to neither love nor seek human companionship. Once only I noticed, and it was the last time she ever walked in the woods, that he whom I supposed to be her brother was with her. She did not sit in the shade, as usual, but walked languidly, and leaning heavily on the arm of her attendant, who several times swept off the curls from her forehead, and bent down, as if kissing her.
A few days afterwards, being slightly indisposed, I called in the village doctor. Our conversation, naturally enough, was of who was sick and who was dead.
"Among my patients," he said, "there is none that interests me so deeply as a little girl at the cottage—indeed, I have scarcely thought of anything else, since I knew that she must die. A strange child," he continued; "she seems to feel neither love of life nor fear of death—nor does she either weep or smile; and though I have been with her much of late, I have never seen her sleep. She suffers no pain—her face wears the same calm expression, but her large, melancholy eyes are wide open all the time."
The second evening after this, though not quite recovered myself, I called at the cottage, in the hope of being of some service to the sick girl. The snowy curtain was dropped over the window of her chamber—the sash partly raised, and all within still—very still. The door was a little open, and, pausing, I heard from within a low, stifled moan, which I could not misunderstand, and pushing open the door, I entered without rapping.
In the white sheet, drawn straight over the head and the feet, I recognised at once the fearful truth—the little girl was dead. By the head of the bed, and still as one stricken into stone, sat the personage I so often wished to see. The room was shadowy, and his face buried in his hands—nevertheless, I knew him—it was he who had passed me on the bridge.
Presently the housekeeper, or one that I took to be she, entered, and whispering to him, he arose and left the room, so that I but imperfectly saw him. When he was gone, the woman folded the covering away from the face, and to my horror I saw that the eyes were still unclosed. Seeing my surprise, she said, as she folded a napkin, and pinned it close over the shut lids——
"It is strange, but the child would never in life close her eyes—her mother, they say, died in watching for one who never came, and the baby was watchful and sleepless from the first."
The next day, and the next, it was dull and rainy—excitement and premature exposure had induced a return of my first indisposition, so that I was not at the funeral. I saw, however, from my window, preparations for the burial—to my surprise, in the lonesome little graveyard by the woods.