"And why is it unlucky to wear black at a wedding? And if anyone did
wear black at your wedding, what would you do?"
"You are very tiresome this evening," she said. "Why don't you keep to
the point? Nobody was talking of weddings, and if you must wander, why
not stray in more amusing paths? Why don't you talk of something
interesting? Why do you try to be disagreeable? If you think I'm silly
to believe all these nice picturesque things, why don't you give me your
solid, dull, dry, scientific reasons for not believing them?"
"Your wish is my law," I responded with alacrity. "Superstition, then,
is the result of the imperfect recognition in unscientific ages of the
relations of cause and effect. To persons unaccustomed correctly to
assign causes, one cause is as likely as another to produce a given
effect. Hallucinations of the senses have also, doubtless--"
"And now you're only dull," she said.
The light had slowly faded while we spoke till the churchyard was almost
dark, the grass was heavy with dew, and sadness had crept like a shadow
over the quiet world.
"I am sorry. Everything I say is wrong to-night. I was born under an
unlucky star. Forgive me."
"It was I who was cross," she admitted at once very cheerfully, but,
indeed, not without some truth. "But it doesn't do anyone any harm to
play at believing things; honestly, I'm not sure whether I believe them
or not, but they have some colour about them in an age grown grey in its
hateful laboratories and workshops. I do want to try to tell you if you
really want to know about it. I can't think why, but if I meet a flock
of sheep I know it is lucky, and I'm cheered; and if a hare crosses the
path I feel it is unlucky, and I'm sad; and if I see the new moon
through glass I'm positively wretched. But all the same, I'm not
superstitious. I'm not afraid of ghosts or dead people, or things like
that"--I'm not sure that she did not add, "So there!"
"Would you dare to go to the church door at twelve at night and knock
three times?" I asked, with some severity.
"Yes," she said stoutly, though I know she quailed, "I would. Now you'll
admit that I'm not superstitious."
"Yes," I said, and here I offer no excuse. The devil entered into me,
and though I see now what a brute beast I was, I cannot be sorry. "I own
that you are not superstitious. How dark it is growing. The ivy has
broken the stone away just behind your head: there is quite a large hole
in the side of the tomb. No, don't move, there's nothing there. If you
were superstitious you might fancy, on a still, dark, sweet evening like
this, that the dead man might wake and want to come up out of his
coffin. He might crouch under the stone, and then, trying to come out,
he might very slowly reach out his dead fingers and touch your neck.
Ah!"
The awakened wind had moved an ivy spray to the suggested touch. She
sprang up with a cry, and the next moment she was clinging wildly to me,
as I held her in my arms.
"Don't cry, my dear, oh, don't! Forgive me, it was the ivy."
She caught her breath.
"How could you! how could you!"
And still I held her fast, with--as she grew calmer--a question in the
clasp of my arms, and, presently, on my lips.
"Oh, my dear, forgive me! And is it true--do you?--do you?"
"Yes--no--I don't know.... No, no, not through my veil, it _is_ so
unlucky!"