The Little One looked up and down the spiral with wide eyes. The other two looked past it into the deep white valley, where the river, covered with ice and snow, was marked only by the lines of skeleton willows and poplars. A night wind, listless but continual, stirred the evergreens. The moon swung low over the opposite hills, and for a moment slipped behind a cloud. “Says it not so, 'For the Love of his Native Place'?” murmured Ambrose. And as the moon came out, there leaned against the pedestal, pointing with a finger at the epitaph, one that seemed an old man, with bowed shoulders and keen, restless face, but in his manner cowed and weary. “It is a lie,” he said slowly. “I hated it, Margaret. I came because Ellen Mercer called me.” “Ellen isn't buried here.” “Not here!” “Not here.” “Was it you, then, Margaret? Why?” “I didn't call you.” “Who then?” he shrieked. “Who called me?” The night wind moved on monotonously, and the moonlight was undisturbed, like glassy water. “When I came away,” she said, “I thought you would marry her. You didn't, then? But why should she call you?” “I left the village suddenly!” he cried. “I grew to dread, and then to hate it. I buried myself from the knowledge of it, and the memory of it was my enemy. I wished for a distant death, and these fifty years have heard the summons to come and lay my bones in this graveyard. I thought it was Ellen. You, sir, wear an antique dress; you have been long in this strange existence. Can you tell who called me? If not Ellen, where is Ellen?” He wrung his hands, and rocked to and fro. “The mystery is with the dead as with the living,” said Ambrose. “The shadows of the future and the past come among us. We look in their eyes, and understand them not. Now and again there is a call even here, and the grave is henceforth untenanted of its spirit. Here, too, we know a necessity which binds us, which speaks not with audible voice and will not be questioned.” “But tell me,” moaned the other, “does the weight of sin depend upon its consequences? Then what weight do I bear? I do not know whether it was ruin or death, or a thing gone by and forgotten. Is there no answer here to this?” “Death is but a step in the process of life,” answered Ambrose. “I know not if any are ruined or anything forgotten. Look up, to the order of the stars, an handwriting on the wall of the firmament. But who hath read it? Mark this night wind, a still small voice. But what speaketh it? The earth is clothed in white garments as a bride. What mean the ceremonials of the seasons? The will from without is only known as it is manifested. Nor does it manifest where the consequences of the deed end or its causes began. Have they any end or a beginning? I cannot answer you.” “Who called me, Margaret?” And she said again monotonously, “I didn't call you.”