'Come,' he said, 'let us go there now!' She took his arm when they got
on the path again, and clinging to him in her pretty girlish way they
went together to the piece of garden which she called her own; there they
picked a great bunch of beautiful white flowers. Then they walked to the
old church. The door was open and they passed in. Harold took from his
pocket a tiny key. This surprised her, and heightened the agitation
which she naturally suffered from revisiting the place. She said nothing
whilst he opened the door to the crypt. Within, on a bracket, stood some
candles in glass shades and boxes of matches. Harold lit three candles,
and leaving one of them on the shelf, and placing his cap beside it, took
the other two in his hands. Stephen, holding her flowers tightly to her
breast with her right hand, took Harold's arm with the left, and with
beating heart entered the crypt.
For several minutes Harold kept her engaged, telling her about the crypt
in his father's church, and how he went down at his last visit to see the
coffin of his dear father, and how he knelt before it. Stephen was much
moved, and held tight to his arm, her heart beating. But in the time she
was getting accustomed to the place. Her eyes, useless at first on
coming out of the bright sunlight, and not able to distinguish anything,
began to take in the shape of the place and to see the rows of great
coffins that stood out along the far wall. She also saw with surprise
that the newest coffin, on which for several reasons her eyes rested, was
no longer dusty but was scrupulously clean. Following with her eyes as
well as she could see into the further corners she saw that there the
same reform had been effected. Even the walls and ceiling had been swept
of the hanging cobwebs, and the floor was clean with the cleanliness of
ablution. Still holding Harold's arm, she moved over towards her
mother's coffin and knelt before it. Harold knelt with her; for a little
while she remained still and silent, praying inwardly. Then she rose,
and taking her great bunch of flowers placed them lovingly on the lid of
the coffin above where she thought her mother's heart would be. Then she
turned to Harold, her eyes flowing and her cheeks wet with tears, and
laid her head against his breast. Her arms could not go round his neck
till he had bent his head, for with his great height he simply towered
above her. Presently she was quiet; the paroxysm of her grief had
passed. She took Harold's hand in both hers, and together they went to
the door. With his disengaged hand, for he would not have disturbed the
other for worlds, Harold put out the lights and locked the door behind
them.
In the church she held him away from her, and looked him fairly in the
face. She said slowly:
'Harold, was it you who had the crypt cleaned?' He answered in a low
voice:
'I knew you would want to go again!'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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