`` Till the dead bid me speak I will be silent , '' answered Edith . `` Leave us alone together . Go and live many years , and then return and tell me of thy life . He too will be here . Then , if thou tellest of sufferings more than death , we will both forgive thee . '' `` And what shall be the token ? '' asked the proud girl , as if her heart acknowledged a meaning in these wild words . `` This lock of hair , '' said Edith , lifting one of the dark clustering curls that lay heavily on the dead man 's brow . The two maidens joined their hands over the bosom of the corpse and appointed a day and hour far , far in time to come for their next meeting in that chamber . The statelier girl gave one deep look at the motionless countenance and departed , yet turned again and trembled ere she closed the door , almost believing that her dead lover frowned upon her . And Edith , too ! Was not her white form fading into the moonlight ? Scorning her own weakness , she went forth and perceived that a negro slave was waiting in the passage with a waxlight , which he held between her face and his own and regarded her , as she thought , with an ugly expression of merriment . Lifting his torch on high , the slave lighted her down the staircase and undid the portal of the mansion . The young clergyman of the town had just ascended the steps , and , bowing to the lady , passed in without a word . Years -- many years -- rolled on . The world seemed new again , so much older was it grown since the night when those pale girls had clasped their hands across the bosom of the corpse . In the interval a lonely woman had passed from youth to extreme age , and was known by all the town as the `` Old Maid in the Winding-Sheet . '' A taint of insanity had affected her whole life , but so quiet , sad and gentle , so utterly free from violence , that she was suffered to pursue her harmless fantasies unmolested by the world with whose business or pleasures she had naught to do . She dwelt alone , and never came into the daylight except to follow funerals .
Whenever a corpse was borne along the street , in sunshine , rain or snow , whether a pompous train XXXXX the rich and proud thronged after it or few and humble were the mourners , behind them came the lonely woman in a long white garment which the people called her shroud .
across between by in of on over than that to