What was that dark grey form moving among the tombstones? Was it the village witch gathering the nettles that grew on the suicide's grave, in order to work her mystic spells and secret charms? Was that sound I heard her dark laughter, as she plucked the mugwort of evil repute? No; it was only my excited imagination conjuring up dread objects and noises. I stood at the door of the belfry tower. It was grey, and iron studded. Should I enter this way? No; my passage among the bell-ropes might set the bells jangling in ghastly discord, and quickly I hurried to the church porch. I stood and listened; but could hear no sound. The stone seats around the porch looked very cold, and the parish notices that were pasted around its walls looked to me like the letters of departed spirits. I lit the candle in my lantern, and fumbled among the keys, my hands trembling as I did so. I found the right key at length, and placed it in the door. I tried to turn it, but it would not move. I pushed it a little farther and tried again. The lock was very stiff, it was but seldom moved--once or twice a week at most, and even more seldom oiled. In spite of the rust, it at length yielded to the strength of my hand, the bolt shot back with a rough grating sound, the great door swung back on its rusty hinges, and I entered the silent church. I withdrew the keys and shut the door. It closed with a bang that sounded terrible in the great building, but I did not heed. I went eastward towards the Communion, under which was the tomb of the Mortons. CHAPTER XXI THE VAULT UNDER THE COMMUNION There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction. These the mere romancist must eschew, if he do not wish to offend or disgust. They are with propriety handled only when the severity and majesty of truth sanctify and maintain them. We thrill, for example, with the most intense of "pleasurable pain" over the accounts of the Passage of the Beresina, of the Earthquake at Lisbon, of the Plague of London, of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, or of the 123 prisoners in the Black Hole at Calcutta. But in these accounts it is the fact--it is the reality--it is the history which excites. As inventions we should regard them with simple abhorrence.--EDGAR A. POE'S _Tales of Mystery and Imagination_. I stood alone in the old church. How silent everything was! The great grey granite pillars, surmounted by circling arches, appeared in ghostly array before me; the high-backed pews seemed to be peopled by dim, shadowy figures, who had come back to watch me as I looked on the face of my loved. Everyone of the tablets on the wall was to me a face of warning. My footfall echoed and re-echoed, until I fancied the silent church peopled by innumerable visitants from the spirit land.