I am that man. There is bitter undying enmity between
us. Our family has been looked on by them as robbers of their rights,
and enemies of their peace. Wilfred taught his children to look on us
so, as he swore he would, and the feeling exists to-day."

He paused a second and then went on.

"And now they gloat over the fact that the old Trewinion Manor shall be
theirs, the place they have coveted so long, and that I shall pay for
my father's sins by dying an accursed death. I am the last of the
heirs, and, according to them, am of the third generation, my
grandfather being accounted by them as the first who really felt the
curse. Do you see now why I fear? I saw my father die, and the legend
says that my death shall be worse than his. Even now I can hear
shrieks of despair, and his unavailing cries for peace and comfort, and
that I am to die a death worse than that is maddening to think."

I saw that he had been feeding his morbid imagination by brooding over
these things, and that living alone in that lonely old house of weird
associations must have led him to live such an unnatural life that he
had become a confirmed monomaniac.

"But why should you be the last of your race? And why should you give
way to these dread fancies?"

"Why should I be the last of my race?" he repeated--"ah, man, you do
not know."

"I know that you could wed some pure-minded woman who would drive
thoughts of the curse away, even such a one as your grandmother, the
Ruth whom I read of in the confessions."

"And do you think I could marry? Let me tell you. When I was about
five and twenty I determined that I would not succumb to dark feelings.
I went into society, and I fell in love with an angel. Ay, she was an
angel, and it is she who makes me believe there is a heaven, for I am
sure such a soul as hers could never die. Well, my love was returned,
and I laughed at all thoughts of the curse, and soon I was wedded to my
darling. For three years I was in Heaven. My life was full of joy and
gladness, and Alice was as happy as I. But at the end of that time
every hope was dashed to the ground, every joy was stamped out of my
life. And why? I have not spoken of this for many a long year, but I
feel a relief in being able to speak about it now. A year after we
were married, a baby was born to us, a bright, bonny boy, and we called
him Roger, the old family name. My joy knew no bounds, and I breathed
defiance against my ene