That same night a cold round moon was shining on the old graveyard where the people of Kilpatrick had for many generations buried their dead--a place of green and grassy graves, with here and there a simple cross of stone or wood. It was a lonely place, a lonely hour, and with the rising moon came a chilly night wind, stealing from grave to grave, and lifting the grass upon them as a cold hand might lift the hair of human heads. The silence of the spot was broken by the sound of a slow but firm footstep approaching along the quiet by-road that led to the village. A tall woman, with a shawl about her head, and clad in a material so dark as to pass for black in the moonlight, entered the graveyard, and stood looking towards the distant sea. She looked long and earnestly before she spoke. ‘It’s the time I named,’ she murmured in a deep, inward-sounding voice. ‘Will he come, I wonder? Maybe he’ll think it’s an idle message, and never guess who sent it, for he thinks me dead and gone long years ago. I must speak with him, and hear tidings of my boy. Oh, saints in heaven, that know the achings of a mother’s heart, ye’ve given me strength to bear my trouble all these years--give me strength now, and pity the wakeness that brought me here, maybe to get a glimpse of my darling son!’ She leaned against a ragged, wind-blown tree, with her forehead supported on her arm; then, slipping to the ground, bent her head in prayer--an appeal of which only an occasional word could have been heard by any chance listener, though the fervour of her supplication shook her whole body with a passionate tremor. She was so lost for the moment to all sense of her surroundings that a loud and cheerful whistle, coming along the path she had herself travelled but a few minutes previous, fell unheeded on her ear, and the gravedigger, returning for his pick and shovel, was close upon her before she recognised his presence. She rose with a start, and the suddenness of her apparition made the intruder’s music stop with a ludicrous suddenness. ‘Musha!’ he cried. ‘What’s that at all? ’Tis a woman! Bedad, I took ye for a ghost!’ ‘I’m flesh and blood, like yourself,’ she answered. ‘But why were ye kneeling there?’ he asked, still fearfully. ‘I was only saying a prayer,’ she answered. ‘A mighty lonesome place to say your prayers in,’ said the gravedigger, crossing himself. ‘Unless,’ he added as an afterthought, and more gently, ‘ye’ve any kith or kin lying here.’ ‘No,’ said the woman; ‘I am a stranger.’ ‘Well, good luck t’ ye, whoever y’ are,’ said the gravedigger. ‘I’ll just get the pick and the spade, and lave ye to your devotions.’ He jumped into an open grave at a little distance. ‘I can finish this in the morning,’ he added to himself. ‘Another two feet ’ll do it.’ ‘Who’s to be buried there?’ she asked, as he clambered out with his tools in his hand.