“Then be comforted,” said Peverell, in a kind and soothing voice; “your hardest trial is past.”

“What a churl he was!” continued Madge, not heeding the words of Peverell; “I only asked him to keep the grave open till to-morrow, and he denied me!  Only till to-morrow—­for then, said I, the cold earth can cover us both.  But he denied me!  So I fell upon my knees, beside my Marian’s grave, and prayed that he might never lose a child, to know that blessedness of sorrow which lies in the thought of soon sleeping with those we have loved and lost!  It was very wrong in me, I know, to wish to call down such affliction on him—­but he denied me—­and I had to hear the rattling dust fall upon her coffin—­ay, and to see that dark, deep grave filled up; as if a mother might not have her own child!”

“Poor afflicted creature!” exclaimed Peverell, in a half whisper to himself.

“Yes!” said Madge, drying her tears with her hands.  “Yes!  I have walked with grief, for my companion in this world, through many a sad and weary hour.  But I shook hands with her, and we parted, at the grave of Marian.  I buried all my troubles there.  What is the hour?”

“Hard upon two,” replied Peverell.

“Then I must be busy,” replied Madge, in a wild, hurried manner, and smiling at Peverell, with a look of much importance, as if what she had to do were some profound secret.  “You’ll not betray me, if I tell you?” she continued, taking his hand—­“Feel!” and she placed it on her heart.  “One, two; one, two; one, two—­and so it goes on; it cannot beat beyond two!  Oh, God! in what pain it is before it breaks!”

She now returned to the chair from which she had risen, at the sound of Peverell’s voice.  He approached nearer; and (with a view rather to draw her gently from her own thoughts, than from any desire that she should leave his house,) he asked her “if she would go home?”

“Yes,” she replied; “bear with me yet a little while, and I’ll go.  It is near the time I promised Marian, when last I kissed her wintry cheek, as she lay shrouded in her coffin; and I may not fail.  Lord!  Lord! what a troubled and worthless world this seems to me now!  A week ago, and the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the green earth, and all that was upon it, were dear to mine eyes; and I should have wept to look my last at them!  But now, I behold nothing it contains, save my Marian’s grave!  You will see me laid in it, for pity’s sake—­won’t you?”

“Ay,” said Peverell, “but that will be when I am gray, and thinking of my own:  so, cheer up.  He that shall toll the bell for thee, now sleeps in his cradle, I’ll warrant.”

She beckoned Peverell to her, and taking his hand, she again placed it on her heart.  A sad, melancholy smile played for a moment across her pale wrinkled face, and her glazed eyes kindled into a fleeting expressing of frightful gladness, as she feebly exclaimed, “Do you feel?  One!—­one!—­one! —­and hardly that—­I breathe only from here,” she continued, pointing to her throat.  “Feel!—­feel!—­one!—­one!—­another!—­how I gasp—­see!—­see—­”