Page:O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories for 1919.pdf/48

26 His gaze went on to another of those worn stones.

There was no moss or lichen on this wind-scoured slope. In the falling dusk the old white stones stood up like the bones of the dead themselves, and the only sound was the rustle of the wire-grass creeping over them in a dry tide. The boy had taken off his cap; the sea-wind moving under the mat of his damp hair gave it the look of some somber, outlandish cowl. With the night coming on, his solemnity had an elfin quality. He found what he was looking for at last, and his fingers had to help his eyes.

Christopher Kain told me that he left the naked graveyard repeating it to himself, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,” conscious less of the words than of the august rhythm falling in with the pulse of his exaltation.

The velvet darkness that hangs under cloud had come down over the hill and the great marsh stretching away to the south of it. Agnes Kain stood in the open doorway, one hand on the brown wood, the other pressed to her cheek.

“You heard it that time, Nelson?”

“No, ma’am.” The old man in the entrance-hall be-