the coffin, when servants and undertakers were out
of sight and hearing.

My mother knew what had been my father's instructions to me, and was
desirous that they should be fulfilled, though she scorned the
superstition. She and I placed the casket and the scroll hearing the
written curse upon it beneath my father's head, and hung the chain of
the amulet around his neck, so that the cross lay with the jewels
uppermost upon his breast. Then the undertakers were called in to
screw down the coffin in my presence. My mother afterwards called me
to her room, and told me that she was much troubled about the cross.
The amulet being of great value, my uncle Aylwin of Alvanley had
tried to dissuade her from carrying into execution what he called
'the absurd whim of a mystic'; but my mother urged my promise, and
there had been warm words between them, as my mother told me--adding,
however, 'and the worst of it is, that scamp Wynne, whom your uncle
introduced into this house without my knowledge or sanction, was
passing the door while your uncle was talking, and if he did not hear
every word about the jewelled cross, drink must have stupefied him
indeed. _He_ is my only fear in connection with the jewels.' Her
dislike of Wynne had made her forget for the moment the effect her
words must have upon me.

'Mother,' I said, 'your persistent prejudice and injustice towards
this man astonish me. Wynne, though poor and degraded now, is a
gentleman born, and is no more likely to violate a tomb than the best
Aylwin that ever lived.'

I will not dwell upon the scene at the funeral. I saw my father's
coffin placed in the crypt that spread beneath the deserted church.
It was by the earnest wish of my father that he was buried in a
church already deserted because the grip of the resistless sea was
upon it. At this very time a very large slice of the cliff behind the
church was pronounced dangerous, and I perceived that new rails were
lying on the grass ready to be fixed up, further inland than ever.

VII

My mother retired to her room immediately on our return to the house.
My uncle stayed till just before dinner, and then left. I seemed to
be alone in a deserted house, so still were the servants, so quiet
seemed everything. But now what was this sense of undefined dread
that came upon me and would not let me rest? Why did I move from room
to room? and what was goading me? Something was stirring like a blind
creature across my brain,