Walter only clutched her arm in answer.
"Look!" he said, and she saw his eyes white with distension of the lids. "It is the oaf."
Through a parting in the boughs Emily saw the sight. There was a little cemetery near by, unpretending but neat with scattered headstones. In the midst of it, kneeling with his forehead bared and his eyes up-lifted, was the human monster who had woven himself into their life so terribly. What was he doing? Should she run? Her first impulse was to fly, but a fascination held her. The oaf's face was averted and they were screened from his gaze.
Looked at now, the creature's countenance was less repulsive than she had thought. Emily had only seen it convulsed with murderous passion, and those who had described it to her had beheld it under similar circumstances. Yet at best it was horribly misshapen.
"Is he crying?" asked Walter. Strange to say, the oaf seemed to be shedding tears and the quick sympathy went out from Emily's bosom, in spite of the past.
"Hark!"
Emily pulled Walter back, as he leaned forward too eagerly to catch what he was saying.
The oaf moaned in a guttural tone that swelled to its close, crescendo. Then he threw himself on the mound before which he knelt.
It was a grave. No headstone covered it. The mourners of the dead who house there were either forgetful or poor. But strange little bunches of withered wild flowers were strewn upon it. And a heap of fresher flowers lay at one side. What was the monster doing?
With his fingers he scooped out hollows in the earth, then lifted the cut daisies and buttercups he had brought, with many a late violet and honeysuckle, and laid their stalks one by one in the cavities. Holding them in place, he propped them up with the loosened earth, till all along the narrow mound there was a bloom of red and yellow and blue. Then the oaf rose and looked down upon his work, with a childish pleasure.