I fled in a panic of unreasoning fear, but returned soon, devoured by curiosity.

You, my sister Irma, must remember how I found you there, gazing with starting eyeballs on the same mysteriously terrifying scene—­and how I drew you away with a laugh and a trifling explanation, so that I might return and resume my ghastly vigil alone.

One of the strangers wore a frock coat and had a sunburned, brown face.  He was not old yet, not more than forty-five or forty-eight.  He seemed to be a tradesman in his Sunday clothes.  That did not interest me much.

I looked at the other old man, and then a shiver of cold went through me.  He was a famous physician, a professor, Mr. H——.  I desire to lay stress upon it that he it was, for I had read two weeks before in the papers that he had died and was buried!

And now he was sitting, in evening dress, in the chamber of a poor plaster sculptor, in the chamber of my father behind a bolted door!

I was aware of the fact that the physician knew father.  Why, you can recall that when father had asthma he consulted Mr. H——.  Moreover, the professor visited us very frequently.  The papers said he was dead, yet here he was!

With beating heart and in terror, I looked and listened.

The professor put some shining little thing on the table.

“Here is my diamond shirt stud,” he said to my father, “It is yours.”

Father pushed the jewel aside, refusing the gift.

“Why, you are spending money on me,” said the professor.

“It makes no difference,” replied father; “I shan’t take the diamond.”

Then they were silent for a long while.  At length the professor smiled and said: 

“The pair of cuff buttons which I had from Prince Eugene I presented to the watchman in the cemetery.  They are worth a thousand guldens.”

And he showed his cuffs, from which the buttons were missing.  Then he turned to the sunburned man: 

“What did you give him, General Gardener?”

The tall, strong man unbuttoned his frock coat.

“Everything I had—­my gold chain, my scarf pin, and my ring.”

I did not understand all that.  What was it?  Where did they come from?  A horrible presentiment arose in me.  They came from the cemetery!  They wore the very clothes in which they were buried!

What had happened to them?  Were they only apparently dead?  Did they awake?  Did they rise from the dead?  What are they seeking here?

They had a very low-voiced conversation with father.  I listened in vain.  Only later on, when they got warmed with their subject and spoke more audibly, did I understand them.

“There is no other way,” said the professor.  “Put it in your will that the coroner shall pierce your heart through with a knife.”

Do you remember, my sisters, the last will of our father, which was thus executed?