"Where, as nearly as you can judge," said the Doctor, after a turn or two through the study, "was this man buried?"
"He spent the last years of his life, certainly, in this town," said Hammond, "and may be found, if at all, among the dead of that period."
"And they--their miserable dust, at least, which is all that still exists of them--were buried in the graveyard under these windows," said the Doctor. "What marks, I say,--for you might as well seek a vanished wave of the sea, as a grave that surged upward so long ago."
"On the gravestone," said Hammond, "a slate one, there was rudely sculptured the impress of a foot. What it signifies I cannot conjecture, except it had some reference to a certain legend of a bloody footstep, which is currently told, and some token of which yet remains on one of the thresholds of the ancient mansion-house."
Ned and Elsie had withdrawn themselves from the immediate vicinity of the fireside, and were playing at fox and geese in a corner near the window. But little Elsie, having very quick ears, and a faculty of attending to more affairs than one, now called out, "Doctor Grim, Ned and I know where that gravestone is."
"Come forward here, both of you," said Doctor Grimshawe.
The two children approached, and stood before the Doctor and his guest, the latter of whom had not hitherto taken particular notice of them. He now looked from one to the other, with the pleasant, genial expression of a person gifted with a natural liking for children, and the freemasonry requisite to bring him acquainted with them; and it lighted up his face with a pleasant surprise to see two such beautiful specimens of boyhood and girlhood in this dismal, spider-haunted house, and under the guardianship of such a savage lout as the grim Doctor. He seemed particularly struck by the intelligence and sensibility of Ned's face, and met his eyes with a glance that Ned long afterwards remembered; but yet he seemed quite as much interested by Elsie, and gazed at her face with a perplexed, inquiring glance.
"These are fine children," said he. "May I ask if they are your own?--Pardon me if I ask amiss," added he, seeing a frown on the Doctor's brow.
"Ask nothing about the brats," replied he grimly. "Thank Heaven, they are not my children; so your question is answered."