their narrow shadows over the short, meagre grass. Just beyond
the brook and the trees, and not far from one of the three stone stiles
which afforded entrance, at various points, to the churchyard, rose the
white marble cross that distinguished Mrs. Fairlie's grave from the
humbler monuments scattered about it.

"I need go no farther with you," said Miss Halcombe, pointing to the
grave. "You will let me know if you find anything to confirm the idea
you have just mentioned to me. Let us meet again at the house."

She left me. I descended at once to the churchyard, and crossed the
stile which led directly to Mrs. Fairlie's grave.

The grass about it was too short, and the ground too hard, to show any
marks of footsteps. Disappointed thus far, I next looked attentively
at the cross, and at the square block of marble below it, on which the
inscription was cut.

The natural whiteness of the cross was a little clouded, here and
there, by weather stains, and rather more than one half of the square
block beneath it, on the side which bore the inscription, was in the
same condition. The other half, however, attracted my attention at
once by its singular freedom from stain or impurity of any kind. I
looked closer, and saw that it had been cleaned--recently cleaned, in a
downward direction from top to bottom. The boundary line between the
part that had been cleaned and the part that had not was traceable
wherever the inscription left a blank space of marble--sharply
traceable as a line that had been produced by artificial means. Who
had begun the cleansing of the marble, and who had left it unfinished?

I looked about me, wondering how the question was to be solved. No sign
of a habitation could be discerned from the point at which I was
standing--the burial-ground was left in the lonely possession of the
dead. I returned to the church, and walked round it till I came to the
back of the building; then crossed the boundary wall beyond, by another
of the stone stiles, and found myself at the head of a path leading
down into a deserted stone quarry. Against one side of the quarry a
little two-room cottage was built, and just outside the door an old
woman was engaged in washing.

I walked up to her, and entered into conversation about the church and
burial-ground. She was ready enough to talk, and almost the first
words she said informed me that her husband filled the two offices of
clerk and sexton. I said a few wo