ly thought of the
possible Wilfred, the Wilfred as he might have been, and as God
intended he should be.

"And what do you intend to do?" said my mother, for such I shall
continue to call her.

"Do, mother," I said. "I shall do nothing."

"Do! What can he do?" laughed Wilfred. "His hands are tied. I am
glad on the whole that he has come, for the place is accursed. It has
never given me anything but misery. I have been in a constant fever.
And Roger will suffer more, I am glad to say. As for you, mother,
serve you right if you never have another day's happiness."

"Wilfred, my boy," said mother, "how can you say so?"

"Say so," repeated Wilfred, "because you have been my real curse. Who
taught me first to envy Roger? You. Who taught me to hate him
afterwards? You. Who was ever at my elbow seeking to make me
misrepresent his every action? You. Who taught me how to deceive
Ruth? You. But for you I should have been content to be the younger
son, content to be the vicar of the parish; but bitterness was
instilled into my heart as a child, until I hated him as I hate all the
world. I wish he had killed me a year ago, for then I would have
haunted him until life should be such a ghastly possession that he
should seek death. But, never mind. Trewinion's curse is fulfilled in
him; he has suffered, and he will have to suffer."

"How?" I said, with pain at my heart.

"How?" he said, "You have broken every condition of happiness, you have
violated every law of our people. It is a law that Trewinion's heir
should never be away from the homestead for more than six months at a
time, and you have been away eleven years. It is written in the curse,
at which you have reason to tremble, that if you stray from God's pure
laws you shall be cursed and crushed by a younger brother. The curse
of our people ever rests upon the heir who hates, and you hate me."

I did not believe in the "curse" at this time; I felt that Wilfred had
a purpose in speaking thus, and yet a strange awesome feeling crept
around my heart as he spoke. Did Wilfred really believe in this legend
of our people? I did not know. Certainly all our family had believed
it in the past, and strange things had happened to our race. Was
ill-luck ever to follow me? Was a dark pall ever to rest upon my life?

All this time I had been living in a sort of dream. I had as yet
scarcely realised that Wilfred was not dead, as yet the awful weight
that