to me at my bidding, and say you love me as
a son should love his father.

"Perhaps it is God's forgiveness for everything. Now, at last, we shall
be together, and that terrible, unexplainable past will be buried for
ever...."

He put his handkerchief back into his pocket and walked slowly to his
son. He dropped to one knee, and his hands gripped Arthur's arms.

"My son, I can say no more to you. I have told you the truth as I alone
know it. I may be, by all accounts, some ghoulish creation of Satan on
earth. I may be a child-killer, a vampire, some morbidly diseased
specimen of _vrykolakas_--things which science cannot explain.

"Perhaps the dreaded legend of the Duryeas is true. Autiel Duryea was
convicted of murdering his brother in that same monstrous fashion in the
year 1576, and he died in flames at the stake. Francois Duryea, in 1802,
blew his head apart with a blunderbuss on the morning after his youngest
son was found dead, apparently from anemia. And there are others, of
whom I cannot bear to speak, that would chill your soul if you were to
hear them.

"So you see, Arthur, there is a hellish tradition behind our family.
There is a heritage which no sane God would ever have allowed. The
future of the Duryeas lies in you, for you are the last of the race. I
pray with all of my heart that providence will permit you to live your
full share of years, and to leave other Duryeas behind you. And so if
ever again I feel that presence as I did in Duryea Castle, I am going to
die as Francois Duryea died, over a hundred years ago...."

He stood up, and his son stood up at his side.

"If you are willing to forget, Arthur, we shall go up to that lodge in
Maine. There is a life we've never known awaiting us. We must find that
life, and we must find the happiness which a curious fate snatched from
us on those Lombard sourlands, twenty years ago...."

2

Henry Duryea's tall stature, coupled with a slenderness of frame and a
sleekness of muscle, gave him an appearance that was unusually _gaunt_.
His son couldn't help but think of that word as he sat on the rustic
porch of the lodge, watching his father sunning himself at the lake's
edge.

Henry Duryea had a kindliness in his face, at times an almost sublime
kindliness which great prophets often possess. But when his face was
partly in shadows, particularly about his brow, there was a frightening
tone which came into his features; for it was a tone of farnes