Recovering at length from my illness, I resumed my duties at the
theatre, where I was received with immense applause after my long
absence, and continued my career with enthusiasm on my part and
admiration on the part of my audience. Night after night I would go
through my part, and week after week and month after month passed away,
and I neither heard nor saw anything further of Maud since our strange
meeting in the stage box--_viz._, on the 31st of December. Sometimes a violent desire to see her again would seize me in the midst
of my part, and I would glance furtively towards the haunted spot, half
expecting to see her, but I never saw her again from that day to this. The dream I had had concerning her during my illness often recurred to
me, and I wondered whether it really was a revelation or only an
ordinary dream to be accounted for by the state of my health at the
time. I had seen no more of Maud's family, neither had I again met our common
friend the doctor or any other friend of the family from whom I might
learn the state of Maud's health, or whether she were dead or alive. A year or two passed away, when I was invited by some friends of mine to
spend a week or so at their country seat, not very far from the seat of
Maud's family. I took the stage, and was put down at a country inn, from
whence I had to walk about a mile-and-a-half to reach my friend's house. It was early in the morning when I arrived at the inn, and not being in
a particular hurry to reach the house, thinking that the family might
not yet have risen, I sauntered leisurely along the carriage road,
halting occasionally and looking around me. The whole scene--the air
itself--seemed to call up memories of Maud. Absorbed in a reverie, I wandered on until I found myself at the gate of
a cemetery, which I mechanically entered. I had passed the same cemetery
often before in my walks with Maud. What a picturesque old place it was! Filled with old crumbling monuments with quaint epitaphs and overgrown
with rank grass and weeds. It was one of Maud's favourite spots for meditation, as she told me. It
was so perfectly solitary--overlooked by no houses and shut out from the
gaze of passers-by with thick yew trees and cypress. Then, when you
entered at the gate, what a silence reigned within! I love those grand
old melancholy retreats, and so did Maud. Here the rich and poor of the
surrounding villages for miles around were buried. I passed by the
elegant marble tombs of the wealthy and the humbler grassy mounds of the
peasantry. My thoughts were filled with the shortness of human life, the
vanity of its noblest pursuits, and the equalling, never-sparing hand of
death. Even the bracing morning air and the merry sunshine were insufficient to
dispel thoughts like these, for the spot had a solemnity of its own
about it. The abode of the dead is at all times sacred to us, even when
we find it in the heart of a populous city, amidst the bustle and stir
of daily life; but how much more is it sanctified when we discover it in
some rural and secluded spot ungrimed with the smoke of factories,
unbroken in upon by rude voices from without, and the mossy stones and
overgrown weeds and brambles of which even the hand of the trim gardener
has not disturbed. I seated myself upon an ancient tomb, and gazed around me. Here lay a
knight of old, there a lord of the manor; yonder some poor rustic whose
humble grave of turf bore no record of the name, age, or sex of its
occupant, what its owner's deeds had been on earth, whether fruitful or
unfruitful. Close beside it rose a stately tombstone of white marble
with a long inscription. "Doubtless here lays some rich landowner," I
thought, "whose supposed virtues are here recorded in full." I was too far off to read what was inscribed, but the tomb was a new
one. It was not there when Maud and I took our rambles together, and I
recollected all the most important gravestones. I rose and advanced a
few steps, when I suddenly halted a few paces from the tomb, and
recoiled in horror. I was seized with trembling, my heart sank, and I
felt my brow covered with a cold sweat. The letters on the monument swam
before my eyes. I brushed away a tear as I read the following lines:

        SACRED TO THE MEMORY
                 OF
            MAUD E----N,
 YOUNGEST DAUGHTER OF GEORGE E----N,
               OF ----
        WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE
     THE 31ST OF DECEMBER, 1750. AGED 21 YEARS. Then followed one or two verses from the Bible. "Oh, Maud, Maud!" I cried, in an agony, and throwing myself on her
grave, I wept bitterly. "What says the gravestone? 'On the 31st of December,'" said I to myself. "Good heavens! That was the very evening on which I saw her spirit last
in the stage box!" I had drawn her soul away from her body for too great a length of time. _I_ then was the cause of her death. Poor Maud! She was right in saying
she should not live the year out, but I little thought that when her
spirit hurried from my presence on that fatal night that it was then
about to leave the body for ever. I felt like a murderer. The thought that one so good, so innocent, and
so talented should meet with her death through one so worthless as
myself galled me. My agony was insufferable. "Oh, Maud! would that we
had never met!" I cried aloud, for now, but, alas, too late, I began to
feel the consuming fire of an intense love for her that in her lifetime
was as yet undeveloped; added to which were the stings of remorse for my
own careless, if not wicked, conduct. I felt now that she had loved _me_. Why had I not come forward before to
crave her hand? Could I not see that she loved me, though she confessed
it not? Fool that I was! Could I not have been happy with her and made
her happy? What was it that made me draw back? I know not. There was
something about her which awed me, and kept me aloof. Then, again, was I in a position at that time to support a wife? Had I
the right to come forward? No, I answered myself, and this thought
consoled me somewhat, but had I not already allowed myself to be carried
away by a passion that had engulfed both her and myself? Love, grief, and remorse struggled in my breast for the mastery. I wept
aloud, and kissed the cold gravestone fervently. I know not how long I
might have been thus, for in my anguish I took no count of time, when I
was suddenly aroused by a footstep behind and a voice. "Mercy on us, who is this?" said the stranger. I turned, and beheld my friend Merrivale. Whilst taking his morning's
walk as usual he had been attracted by my lamentations, and curiosity
led him to enter the cemetery. "Why, what the--I say--what! Is that _you_?" he said, as I looked up
abashed in the midst of my grief, and knew not what to reply. "Come, come," said he. "I understand all, I saw all from the beginning.