mies. How could there be a curse, I said, when
God had given us such a boy? Ah, how we loved him, Alice and I, how we
watched him as, day by day, he grew in strength of body and mind! A
year passed by and all was well, still another passed and nothing
seemed to darken our sky. Our boy was now two years old, and was
strong and healthy, while my wife and I looked forward to long years of
happiness.

"But the curse had been laid upon my race, and it crept upon us like a
crawling poisonous serpent. Just after our boy's holiday he was
missing. We searched for him high and low, we scoured the country
side, but we never saw him alive again."

"What became of him?" I asked anxiously.

"A week after we missed him some fishermen discovered the body of a
child, bruised and beaten beyond recognition, but still wearing clothes
similar to those worn by our boy. And thus we concluded, that he must
have strayed and fallen over the cliff."

I felt it useless to speak. Words, I knew, would only add to the
suffering caused by the awakening of these bitter memories.

"It broke our hearts," he continued, hoarsely, after a minute's
silence. "Soon I saw that grief was killing my wife. God only knows
how I prayed for her. I consulted all the best physicians; but it was
no use, in three months sorrow killed her, and--I was left alone."

He laid his head on the table, while sobs shook his mighty frame, and
for minutes he did not speak. Mastering himself at length, he
continued, more calmly.

"Then I shut myself up here. I dismissed all the servants save the two
you have seen, and have for years refused to mix with my fellows. I
grew churlish and bitter. I talked strangely, until stories were
circulated about me, wild and foolish, of course, but still making me
become more a misanthrope than ever. Why I gave you admittance
yesterday I do not know, but acting on sudden impulse I did so, and
then was led to allow you to see those confessions, and still further
to relate my story. Now do you believe in the curse? Now do you
believe that, remorseless as fate, it is dogging me, and will dog me,
until, mad with despair, and taunted by powers of darkness, I go away
into darkness?"

"No," I answered, "I do not."

"Why not?"

"Curses such as that do not exist, as your grandfather half perceived.
You would not believe in anything of the sort but for your unhealthy
and lonely life. Go out into God's sunshine, lead a healthy,