"'I never said it before, Tom,' she continued, evidently frightened at his wicked look, 'but I must say it now, for I cannot remember the hate you tried to teach me; I can only remember that a man capable of loving and being loved buried himself with a woman he could not tolerate, all from a sense of duty, and looked out at the merry world only to covet it. I have forgotten the selfishness which occupies every human heart; it was driven out of my nature with hope and ambition, and I am only just when I say that he deserved pity as well as I. He was capable of something better than such a life; and was worthy of it. I might have been worthy; but I was not capable, and was it right to sacrifice him because I crept while he ran? Do we not praise men for remedying their mistakes? You know we do, and I only praise him for it; nothing more. The truth should always be written on a tomb; this house is like a tomb, it is so cold and damp, and I must tell the truth here. I am cold; why don't you build a fire?' "She put her hand into the flame of the candle she carried, to warm it, but it did not burn, very much to my surprise; and she looked at me with quiet assurance while she warmed her hands in this odd manner. As I watched her I noticed that the wild look which marked her face when she first appeared was returning; her craze came back to her, and she put it on with a shiver. "'Your feet are resting on a grave,' she said to me again, after staring around the room awhile, and as coolly as she might have called my attention to muddy boots. 'Please take them off. It may be _his_ grave. I have brought flowers to decorate it; an armful. Stand aside, sir.' "I did as she told me, and, advancing toward where I sat, she pretended to throw something on nothing out of her empty hands. "'I came across a grave in the lower hall this morning, Tom,' she said to The Wolf, pausing; and she said it with so much indifference that I thought she must have meant a moth. 'Of course they would not be together: I have never expected that. The grave in the hall was shorter than this one, and it was neglected. But this one,--this shows care. And look, Tom! The flowers I threw upon it are gone already!' "There was surprise and pain in the little woman's voice, and she pretended to throw other flowers from her withered hands on the mound her disordered fancy had created. "'They disappear before they touch it!' she said. 'I almost expect it to speak, and protest against any attention from me. And it is sinking; trying to get away from me! How much his grave is like him; it shrinks away from me. I'll gather them up; I'll not leave them here!' "Out of the air she seemed to be collecting wreaths, and crosses and flowers of every kind, and putting them back into her arms.