You know I was wild after she died; and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying her to return to me her spirit! I have a strong faith in ghosts: I have a conviction that they can, and do, exist among us! The day she was buried, there came a fall of snow.
In the evening I went to the churchyard.

It blew bleak as winter--all round was solitary.

I didn't fear that her fool of a husband would wander up the glen so late; and no one else had business to bring them there.

Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole barrier between us, I said to myself--"I'll have her in my arms again! If she be cold, I'll think it is this north wind that chills _me_; and if she be motionless, it is sleep." I got a spade from the tool-house, and began to delve with all my might--it scraped the coffin; I fell to work with my hands; the wood commenced cracking about the screws; I was on the point of attaining my object, when it seemed that I heard a sigh from some one above, close at the edge of the grave, and bending down.

"If I can only get this off," I muttered, "I wish they may shovel in the earth over us both!" and I wrenched at it more desperately still.