Page:The Tattooed Countess (1924).pdf/229

 She married and went east many years ago. I've heard mother speak of her. Sometimes she comes back here to visit her father. He is a very old man now.

A sigh escaped the Countess.

A little farther on, enclosed in an iron-fence, painted white, the cemetery began.

Do you mind, Gareth asked, walking through the cemetery? It's a short cut to where we're going.

Not at all. The Countess smiled. In Paris all tourists visit Père-Lachaise. Why shouldn't I visit the Maple Valley graveyard?

In silence, they entered the gateway and strolled down a winding path. The place, like so many village cemeteries, was not lacking in a certain disturbing, melancholy loveliness. The dark green of the cedars and cypresses, severe and solemn trees, supplied a significant contrast to the aging marble of the tombs. Weeping willows spread their drooping fronds over the urns and obelisks. The mounds were buried under myrtle coverlets. Occasionally some visitor had placed cut-flowers in a vase of water sunk in the turf near a head-stone. Here and there they observed a neglected grave, the head-stone leaning like the tower of Pisa, but the general atmosphere of the place was serene and peaceful. Ella began to wonder, indeed, why she had not heard more about it.

Presently, on a little knoll ahead of them, they