"This was a sad business; for, if the Padre had come in time, at all events Hans's soul would have been safe, and his body buried in consecrated ground. My husband went to the Rector and told his Reverence that Hans had renounced his errors, and had made a full profession of the Catholic faith to him; but his Reverence shook his head, and said that was not the same thing as if Padre Michele had received Hans into the true fold. Then my husband said it was a pity Hans should suffer because the Padre had been out of the way; but his Reverence always answered, 'No,' and so 'No' it was. The clergy were not to attend, and the body was to be put into the ground just as you might bury a dog. What could my husband do more? So he went his way to his patients. It happened that he had to see several, far in the country, and so did not come home till late at night.
"You all know the tower which stands upon the green knoll high above the town. It is a relic of very old times, when San Cipriano had fortifications. It has been a ruin for more than a century,--a mere shell, open to the sky, encircling a wide space of ground. A few days before Hans's death, the Doctor had taken it into his head he would like to hire this tower of the municipality, to which it belongs, to make a garden within its walls. He had been to examine the place a week previous, and had brought home the key of the gate, being determined to take it. Now this very day after Hans died, and while my husband was away on his round of country visits, the Syndic sent to ask for the key, and I, thinking no harm, gave it. And now what do you think the Syndic wanted the key for? Just to dig a hole for poor Hans. Yes, the body was carried up there, and buried out of sight as quickly as possible.
"When the Doctor came home he was in a mighty passion with everybody;--with the Rector, for refusing Hans a place in the burial-ground; with the Syndic, for allowing the tower to be used for such a purpose; and most of all with me, for giving the key without asking why or wherefore.
"However, what was done could not be undone, and so no more was said about the matter. It might have been a week after, when some girls who had set out before daylight to go to the wood for leaves, came back much terrified, declaring they had seen an apparition on the tower wall. Not one had dared to go on to the wood, but all ran back to the town and spread the alarm. A dozen persons, at least, came to our house to tell us about it, and I promise you my husband did not call it a stupid trick, as he did today. He looked very grave, and exclaimed, 'I don't wonder at it. No doubt it is poor Hans, who does not like to lie in unconsecrated ground. Don't come to me,--it's none of my business,--I have only to do with the living,--the dead belong to the clergy,--this is the Rector's affair. If ever a ghost had a right to walk, it is in such a case as this, when a poor, honest fellow is denied Christian burial because an old monk's legs refuse to carry him fast enough. Had Padre Michele been a younger man, all would have been right.'