IT was fortunate that there was no serious sickness in Hamilton that night, for the new physician was out of town and Dr. Izard inaccessible. Ever since nightfall there had been a rush of people to the latter’s gate, the news having already spread far and wide that the doctor had lately shown signs of mania, during which he had invited the whole town to come to the cemetery the following morning, there to witness, they scarcely knew what, but something strange, something which would turn the public mind against Ephraim Earle, whom he had once before, as all remembered, accused of being an impostor. But they found the gate padlocked, and so were obliged to content themselves with hanging over the cemetery wall and catching what glimpses they could of the doctor’s light which shone clear but inhospitable from his open window. Not till the great clock struck twelve did the curious crowd separate and straggle away to their respective homes.

Meanwhile what was the doctor doing? We, who have penetrated more than once into his silent room, will do it once again and for the last time. We shall not see much. The doctor, whose face shows change, but not so much as one would expect, sits at his table writing. The name of Grace is at the top of the page over which he bends, and the words are few beneath, but they seem to be written with his heart’s blood; for in signing them he gives vent to one irrepressible sob—he the man whose sternly contained soul had awed his fellow-men for years and held all men and women and children back from him, as if his nature lacked sympathy for anything either weak or small. The night was far advanced when he folded this letter, directed it, and laid it face up on his desk. But though he must have been weary, he cast no glance at the settle in the dim corner of the room, but began to arrange his effects, clear his drawers, and put in order his shelves, as if preparing for the curiosity of other eyes than those which had hitherto rested so carelessly upon them.

There was a fire lighted in the stove, and into this he thrust some papers and one or two insignificant objects which it seemed a strong effort to part from. As the blaze leaped up he cringed and partially turned away his head, but soon he was again amongst his belongings, touching some with a loving hand, others with a careless one, till the church clock, striking two, proclaimed that time was passing hurriedly. At this reminder he dropped the book he had taken up and passed to the green door. It was locked, as usual, but he speedily undid the fastenings, and carrying a lamp with him, stepped through the opening and up the spiral staircase. One of the steps creaked as he pressed it, and he sighed as he heard the familiar sound, possibly because he did not expect to hear it again. When in the hall he set down the lamp, but soon took it up again and began visiting the rooms. They had always been well looked after, and were neither unsightly nor neglected in appearance, but they seemed to have a painful significance for him as he looked, lamp in hand, from the open doorways. In this one his mother had stood as a bride, with her young friends around her, most of whom were laid away in the graveyard, which was never long absent from his thoughts. How he had loved to hear her tell about that night, and the dress which she wore, and the compliments she received, and how it was the happiest night of her life, till he came—her little child—to make every night joyful. Ah, if she could have foreseen—if she had lived! But God was good and took her, and he of all his family was left to meet the doomful hour alone. In the room he now entered he had played as a boy, such merry plays, for he was a restless child and had a voice like a bell rung in the sunshine. Was that golden-haired, jovial little being who ran up and down these floors like mad and shouted till the walls rung again, the earnest of himself as he appeared at this hour shuddering in the midnight darkness through the empty spaces of this great house? And this little nook here, the dearest and most sacred of all in his eyes—could he bear to look at it with this crushing weight upon his heart and the prospect of to-morrow looming up in ghostly proportions before him, darkening every spot at which he gazed?

Yes, yes; for here all that there has ever been of sweetness in his miserable life, all that there is of hope in that great world to come, centres and makes a holy air about him. Here she sat one day, one memorable, glorious day, with the sunshine playing on her hair and that sweet surprise in her look which told him more plainly than the faltering yes on her tongue that his presumptuous love was returned, and that life henceforth promised to be a paradise to him. Ah, ah, and he had not been satisfied! He must needs be a great physician too, greater than any of those about him, greater than the great lights of Boston and New York, and so—But away with such thoughts; it is not morning yet and this night shall be given up to sweeter memories and more sacred farewells.

Stooping he knelt where she had sat, and put his hands together as in childhood’s days and prayed, perhaps for the first time in years; prayed as if his mother was overhearing him. Did he pray alone? Was not she praying too in that shabby little room of hers, so unworthy of her beauty and yet so hallowed by her resignation and her love?

Ah, yes, she was praying there to-night, but what would she be doing there to-morrow? He uttered a cry as the thought stung him, and springing passionately to his feet went on and on, avoiding but one place in the whole house and that was where a little door led down to the cellar, at the side of the spiral staircase. When all was done he paused and said his last farewell. Who would walk these lonely halls after he had vanished from them? Upon whom would these mirrors look and in whose hearts would the mystery of this place next impress itself? There was no prophet present to lift the veil, and dropping his chin on his breast the doctor descended the stairs and betook himself again to his desolate den.

The stars were shining brightly over the graveyard as he reseated himself at his desk. There were no signs of advancing morning yet, and he could dream, dream yet that he was young again and that Grace’s voice was in his ear and her tender touch on his arm, and that life was all innocence and hope, and that yon loud resounding clock, too loud for guilty men, rang with some other sound than that of death, doom, and retribution.

Letting his head fall forward in his hands he sat while the dreary hours moved on, but when the clock struck six he raised his forehead and facing the churchyard waited for the first coming streaks of light. And sitting so and waiting so we get our last glimpse of him before the hubbub and turmoil of the day set in, with the curious gaping crowd on the highway and the group among the graves, asking why the doctor had not come out, and why the sexton was the first to appear on the scene, and why he bore a pickaxe and a spade and looked as solemn as if he were going to dig a grave for the dead.

Seven o’clock had not struck, but Ephraim Earle was there, and Clarke and little Polly, crouching in terror behind her mother’s tomb; and a physician was there too, summoned from Wells by Earle, some said, that there might be a competent person on hand to look after the doctor should he prove to be, as more than one person intimated, the madman he appeared; and Dr. Sunderland was there, the good minister; and Mr. Crouse, who had had Polly’s matters in charge, and every one but the true Ephraim Earle, whom the doctor had promised to produce.

But then it was not yet seven and Dr. Izard had said seven; and when the hour did at last strike then every peering eye and straining ear became instantly aware that his door had opened and that he stood on the doorstep cold and silent, but alone.

“Where is the true Ephraim Earle you talked about? You promised to bring him here! Let us see him,” shouted a voice, and the whole crowd that was pushing and elbowing its way into the graveyard echoed as with one voice: “Let us see him! let us see him!”

The doctor, perfectly unmoved, stepped down from the threshold and came toward them quietly, but with a strange command in his manner. “I shall keep my word,” said he, and turned to the sexton. “Dig!” he cried, and pointed to a grave at his feet.

“Wretch! madman!” screamed Earle, “would you desecrate my wife’s grave? What do you mean by such a command?”

“You threatened to do this yourself but yesterday,” the doctor returned, “and why do you hesitate to have it done by me?” And he again cried to the hesitating sexton, “Dig!” and the man, understanding nothing, but driven to his work by the doctor’s fierce eye and unfaltering lip, set himself to the task.

“Oh, what is he going to show us? Do not, do not let him go on,” moaned Polly. “I own this man to be my father; why do you let this terror go on before our eyes?”

“This man whom you are ready to own as your father has called me the murderer of his wife,” retorted the doctor. “I can only refute it by showing him the contents of this grave. Go on!” he commanded, with an imperative gesture to the sexton, “or I will take the spade in my own hands.”

“Ah, he has done that once before!” muttered Polly. “He is mad! Do you not see it in his eyes?”

The doctor, whose face had the aspect of marble, but who otherwise was quite like himself in his best and most imposing mood, turned upon Polly as she said this, and smiled as only the broken-hearted can smile when confronted by a pitiful jest.

“Is there a physician here?” he demanded. “Ah, I see Dr. Brotherton. You are in good time, I assure you, doctor. Feel my pulse and lay your hand on my heart, and answer if you think I have my wits about me and know what I say when I declare that only by investigating this grave can the truth be known.”

“I do not need to do either, doctor. I know a sane man when I see him, and I must acknowledge that there are few saner than you.”

A flush for the first time crept into Ephraim Earle’s hardy cheek; he shifted restlessly on his feet, and his eyes fell with something like secret terror upon the hole that was fast widening at his feet.

“I believe you two are in league,” he cried; “but if Dr. Izard can prove himself innocent of the charges I have made against him, why, he is welcome to do so, even at the cost of my most sacred feelings.”

“When you strike the coffin, let me know,” said the doctor to the sexton. At these words a dreadful hush settled over the whole assemblage, in which nothing could be heard but the sound of the spade. Suddenly the sexton, who was by this time deep in the hole he was making, looked up.

“I have reached it,” he said.

The doctor drew in his breath and turned livid for a moment, then he cast a strange look away from them all across the deserted town, and seeming to gather strength from something he saw there, he motioned the sexton to continue, while he said aloud and with steady emphasis:

“This man who confronts you at my side is not Ephraim Earle, because Ephraim Earle lies buried here!” and scarcely waiting for the anxious cries of astonishment evoked by these words to subside, he went rapidly on to say: “Fourteen years ago he died by my hand on this spot and was buried by me in this grave. God forgive me that I have kept this deed a secret from you so long.”

The tumult which took place at this avowal was appalling. Men and women pushed and struggled till the foremost nearly fell into the grave. Polly shrieked and fell back into the arms of Clarke, while he who had been called Earle shrank all at once together and looked like the impostor he was. Dr. Izard alone retained his self-possession, the self-possession of despair.

“Listen,” he now cried, awing that tumultuous mass into silence by the resonant tones of his voice and the gesture which he made toward the now plainly-to-be-seen coffin. “It was not a predetermined murder. I was young, ambitious, absorbed in my profession and eager to distinguish myself. His wife’s case was a strange one. It baffled me; it baffled others. I could see no reason for the symptoms she showed, nor for the death she died. You know the truth; to sound the difficulty and make myself strong against another such a case was but the natural wish of so young and ambitious a man; but when I asked Ephraim for the privilege of an autopsy he denied it to me with words that stung and inflamed me till what had been a natural instinct became an overmastering passion, and I determined that I would know the truth concerning her complaint if I had to resort to illegal and perhaps unjustifiable means. Her grave—you are standing by it—was made near, very near my office, and when the mound was cleared and the mourners had departed, my way looked so plain before me that I do not think I so much as hesitated at the decision I had formed, dreadful as it may seem to you now. When midnight came,—and it was a dismal night, the blackest of the year,—I stole out into this spot and began my unhallowed work. I had no light, but I needed none, and strange as it may seem, I reached the coffin-lid in an hour, and stooping down began to wrench it open, when suddenly I heard a step, then a murmur and then a short, fierce cry. The husband had suspected me and was there to guard his dead.

“Leaping from the grave, I confronted him and a short, wild struggle ensued. He had thrown himself upon me in anger, and I, with the natural instinct of self-preservation, raised my spade and struck him, how surely I did not know at the moment. But when silence followed the struggle and a heavy fall shook the ground at my feet, I began to realize what I had done, and throwing myself upon the prostrate body, I laid my hand upon the heart and my cheek to the fast-chilling lips. No action in the one, no breath upon the other; Ephraim Earle was dead, and I, his murderer, stood with his body at my feet beside his wife’s wide-opened grave.

“I had never known terror till that hour, but as I rose to my feet, comprehending as it were in an instant all that lay before me if his dead body was found at my door, the subtleness of the criminal entered into me, and springing back into the grave I tore poor Huldah’s corpse from its last resting place, thrust her husband’s scarce cold body into her coffin, and pushed down the lid. Then I shovelled in the earth, and when all was done, I carried her poor remains into the house and buried them beneath the cellar floor, where they are still lying. And now you know my crime and now you know my punishment. Three months ago this man came into town and announced himself as Ephraim Earle, and marking the havoc he has made with the happiness of our innocent Polly, I have felt myself driven step by step to make this dreadful avowal. Now look into this grave for yourselves, and see if all that I have told you is not true.”

And they did look, and though I need not tell you what they saw, there was no more talk in Hamilton of any lack of sanity on Dr. Izard’s part, nor did any man or woman there-after speak again of the adventurer by the name of Ephraim Earle.

When the first horror was over and people could look about them once more, the doctor’s voice was heard for the last time.

“When this man—who, as you see, would like to escape from this place, but cannot—came with his bravado into town, I told Polly that before she accepted his assertions as true, she should exact from him some irrefutable proof of his identity, and mentioned the medal that had been given to her father by the French government. This was because the medal had not been found after his disappearance, and I thought it must have been upon his person when he was thrust into the grave. But to my horror and amazement, this fellow was able to produce it,—where found or how discovered by him I cannot tell. But he has never given evidence of having the money which accompanied the medal. Search, then, my friends, and see if it cannot be found among this dust, and if it can, give it to Polly, whom I have in vain endeavored to recompense for this loss, which was involuntary on my part and which has always been to me the most unendurable feature of my crime.”

A cry of surprise, a shout of almost incredulous joy, followed this suggestion, and Mr. Crouse held up to sight a discolored, almost indistinguishable pocketbook, which some one had the courage to pull out of the coffin. Then another voice, more solemn and methodical than any which had yet spoken, called out: “Let us kneel and give thanks to God, who remembers the fatherless and restores to the orphan her rightful patrimony.”

But another voice, shriller and more imperative still, put a stop to this act of devotion.

“Dr. Izard has confessed his sins, and now let the impostor confess his. Who are you, man, and how happens it that you know all our ways and the whole history of this town?” And Lawyer Crouse shook the would-be Earle by the arm and would not let him go till he answered.

“I am—” the old bravado came back, and the fellow for a moment looked quite reckless and handsome. “Ask Tilly Unwin who I am,” he suddenly shouted, breaking into a great laugh. “Don’t you remember Bill Prescott, all you graybeards? You used to hustle with me once for a chance at her side at singing school and dance; but you won’t hustle any longer, I am ready to swear; the lady’s beauty is not what it was.” And with this unseemly jest he whirled about on one heel and gave his arm to a slim, light-complexion young man whom few had noticed, but who at no time had stepped far away from his side.

The cry of “Phil! It is Phil, the scape-grace who was said to be dead a dozen years ago,” followed him out of the yard; but he heeded nobody, his game was over, and his last card, a black one, had been played.

And Dr. Izard? When they thought of him again, he was gone; whither, no one knew, nor did it enter into the heart of any one there to follow him. One person, a heavily draped woman, who had not entered the graveyard, but who had stood far down the street during all that dreadful hour, thought she saw his slight form pass between her and the dismal banks of the river; but she never rightly knew, for in her mind’s eye he was always before her, and this vision of his bowed head and shrunken form may have been, like the rest, a phantom of her own creation.