As we strolled along the gravel-walk, my attention was attracted by one of the graves standing apart from the rest. The cross at the head of it differed remarkably, in some points of appearance, from the crosses on the other graves. While all the rest had garlands hung on them, this one cross was quite bare; and, more extraordinary still, no name was inscribed on it.
The priest, observing that I stopped to look at the grave, shook his head and sighed.
“A countryman of yours is buried there,” he said. “I was present at his death. He had borne the burden of a great sorrow among us, in this town, for many weary years, and his conduct had taught us to respect and pity him with all our hearts.”
“How is it that his name is not inscribed over his grave?” I inquired.
“It was suppressed by his own desire,” answered the priest, with some little hesitation. “He confessed to me in his last moments that he had lived here under an assumed name. I asked his real name, and he told it to me, with the particulars of his sad story. He had reasons for desiring to be forgotten after his death. Almost the last words he spoke were, ‘Let my name die with me.’ Almost the last request he made was that I would keep that name a secret from all the world excepting only one person.”
“Some relative, I suppose?” said I.
“Yes—a nephew,” said the priest.
The moment the last word was out of his mouth, my heart gave a strange answering bound. I suppose I must have changed color also, for the cure looked at me with sudden attention and interest.
“A nephew,” the priest went on, “whom he had loved like his own child. He told me that if this nephew ever traced him to his burial-place, and asked about him, I was free in that case to disclose all I knew. ‘I should like my little Charley to know the truth,’ he said. ‘In spite of the difference in our ages, Charley and I were playmates years ago.’”
My heart beat faster, and I felt a choking sensation at the throat the moment I heard the priest unconsciously mention my Christian name in mentioning the dying man’s last words.