ut the effect of a dead man's
curse. I knew that this idea had a dreadful fascination for her--the
fascination of repulsion. I knew also that reason may strive with
superstition as with the other instincts, but it will strive in vain.
I knew that it would have been worse than idle for me to say to
Winifred, 'There is no curse in the matter. The dreaming mystic who
begot and forgot me, what curse could he call down on a soul like my
Winifred's?' Her reason might partly accept my arguments; but
straightway they would be spurned by her instincts and her
traditional habits of thought. The terrible voice of the Psalmist
would hush every other sound. Her sweet soul would pine under the
blazing fire of a curse, real or imaginary; her life would be
henceforth but a bitter penance. Like the girl in Coleridge's poem of
'The Three Graves,' her very flesh would waste before the fires of
her imagination. 'No,' said I, 'such a calamity as this which I dread
Heaven would not permit. So cruel a joke as this Hell itself would
not have the heart to play.'

My meditations were interrupted by a sound, and then by a sensation
such as I cannot describe. Whence came that shriek? It was like a
coming from a distance--loud _there_, faint _here_, and yet it seemed
to come from _me_! It was as though I were witnessing some dreadful
sight unutterable and intolerable. And then it seemed the voice of
Winifred, and then it seemed her father's voice, and finally it
seemed the voice of my own father struggling in his tomb. My horror
stopped the pulses of my heart for a moment, and then it passed.

'It comes from the church or from behind the church,' I said, as the
shriek was followed by an angry murmur as of muffled thunder. All had
occurred within the space of half a second. I quickly but cautiously
opened my bedroom door, extinguishing my light before doing so, and
began to creep downstairs, fearing to wake my mother. My shoes
creaked, so I took them off and carried them. Crossing the hall, I
softly drew the bolts of the front door; then I passed into the
moonlight. The gravel of the carriage-drive cut through my stockings,
and a pebble bruised one of my heels so that I nearly fell. When I
got safely under the shadow of the large cedar of Lebanon in the
middle of the lawn, I stopped and looked up at my mother's window to
see if she were a watcher. The blinds were down, there was no
movement, no noise. Evidently she was asleep. I put on my shoes an