“No, there is none but what is crowded with the sick and dying in all this island.” “I must have some place.” “There is only one spot that is quiet.” “What one?” “The dead-house.” I shuddered. “No, not there. See,” said I, and I handed her a piece of gold. “Find me some place and you shall have still more.” “Well,” she said, hesitatingly, “I have the room where me and my man live. I suppose we could give up that.” “Take me there, then.” “Shall I help you carry her?” “No,” I answered, drawing back my pure Edith from her outstretched hands. “No, I will carry her.” The woman went on without a word. She led the way back to the low and dismal sheds which lay there like a vast charnel-house, and thence to a low hut some distance away from all, where she opened a door. She spoke a few words to a man, who finally withdrew. A light was burning. A rude cot was there. Here I laid the one whom I carried. “Come here,” said I, “three times a day. I will pay you well for this.” The woman left. All night long I watched. She lay unmoved and unchanged. Where was her spirit wandering? Soared it among the splendors of some far-off world? Lingered it amidst the sunshine of heavenly glory? Did her seraphic soul move amidst her peers in the assemblage of the holy? Was she straying amidst the trackless paths of ether with those whom she had loved in life, and who had gone before? All night long I watched her as she lay with her marble face and her changeless smile. There seemed to be communicated to me an influence from her which opened the eyes of my spiritual sense; and my spirit sought to force itself upon her far-off perceptions, that so it might catch her notice and bring her back to earth. The morning dawned. There was no change. Mid-day came, and still there was no change. I know not how it was, but the superintendent had heard about the grave being opened, and found me in the hut. He tried to induce me to give back to the grave the one whom I had rescued. The horror of that request was so tremendous that it force me into passionless calm. When I refused he threatened. At his menace I rejoined in such language that he turned pale. “Murderer!” said I, sternly, “is it not enough that you have sent to the grave many wretches who were not dead? Do you seek to send back to death this single one whom I have rescued? Do you want all Canada and all the world to ring with the account of the horrors done here, where people are buried alive? See, she is not dead. She is only sleeping. And yet you put her in the grave.” “She is dead!” he cried, in mingled fear and anger--“and she must be buried.” “She is not dead,” said I, sternly, as I glared on him out of my intensity of anguish--“she is not dead: and if you try to send her to death again you must first send me. She shall not pass to the grave except over my corpse, and over the corpse of the first murderer that dares to lay hands on her.”