He rose and accompanied her docilely enough, but the strength that had furnished him with force to speak seemed to last only while he was in the churchyard.  As they went along the quiet road he was again the flimsy, unlovely shell of a man she had first known.  They went slowly, for Mary accommodated her gait to his; he walked weakly, looking down always.  Where the road passed the end of the village a few people turned to look after them with slow curiosity.  The village policeman, chin in hand, stared with bovine intensity; his big, simple face was clenched in careful observation.  Mary recalled Harry Wylde’s story, and his warning that the authorities had been seeking for Smith; she quickened her pace a little to get out of that mild publicity.

“What were you before you—­before you met Professor Fish?” she asked him suddenly.

“A bettin’ tout,” he answered, “and a thief.”  He spoke absently and with complete composure.

“Well,” said Mary, “will you do something for me if I ask you?”

He looked aside at her.  “Don’t ask,” he said.  “Don’t ask me to do anything.  ’Cos I can’t.”

“It’s only this,” said Mary.  “What you told me in the churchyard was very wonderful and dreadful; but even if it was true, it would be a bad thing for you to think much about.  It couldn’t help you to live; it could only come between you and being well.  So I want you, as far as you can, not to think about it.  Try to forget it.  Will you?”

He made some inarticulate sound with his lips.  “Did Fish warn you?” he asked.  “Did he tell you I was crazy and had notions?  Ah!” he exclaimed, “I can see he did.  He’s as cunning as a fox, he is.  He’s got me tied hand and foot!”

“Hush!  Don’t talk like that!” bade Mary.  “Do as I ask you.  You know I’m your friend.  Don’t you?”

He shrugged uncertainly.  “You would be if you knew how,” he said slowly.  “But, Lord! you don’t know nothing that matters.  It’s only us that knows what’s what—­only us.”

“Who’s us?” asked Mary involuntarily.

He looked full at her.  “The dead,” he answered, and after that they went on in silence.

It was not easy for Mary to marshal her thoughts that evening, when Smith, after a silent meal, had gone to bed, and left her alone with her father.  He had spoken with such an effect of intensity that the impression of it persisted in her memory like the pain that remains from a blow; the figure of him, sitting on the grave, telling his strange story in words of impressive simplicity, haunted her obstinately.  She could see easily the picture he had conjured for her of a big electric-lighted room, silent save for remote noises from without, and its equipment of dissecting-tables, bottles, and the machinery of an anatomist.  Wylde’s story had sunk into the background of her concerns; yet it was of that she had to speak to her father, and she was glad rather than surprised when he made an opening for her himself.