I gathered from the doctor and the servants that the sacrilege had
now become publicly known, and had caused much excitement. Wynne had
evidently been slightly intoxicated when he committed it, and had
taken no care to conceal the proofs that the grave had been tampered
with. At the inquest the amulet had been identified and claimed by my
mother.
It was some days before I got out, and then I went at once to the
cottage. It was a lovely evening as I walked down Wilderness Road. It
was not till I reached the little garden-gate that I began fully to
feel how weak my illness had left me. The gate was half open, and I
looked over into the garden, which was already forlorn and deserted.
Some instinct told me she was not there. The little flower-beds
looked shaggy, grass-grown, and uncared for. In the centre, among the
geraniums, phlox-beds, and French marigolds, sat a dirty-white hen,
clucking and calling a brood of dirty-white chickens. The
box-bordered gravelled paths, which Wynne, in spite of his
drunkenness, used to keep always so neat, were covered with leaves,
shaken by the wind from the trees surrounding the garden.
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