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.
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