“I took it out of its brown-paper covering. Again, Constance, am I a man of superstitions?”
“Well----” He considered the point for a few moments, as one perhaps better concealed. Then he resolved upon communicating it. “When I opened it I was seized with a most curious repulsion--a kind of loathing--which it was difficult to shake off. This morning on looking at the book again I had the same feeling.”
“Yes, it is strange. But you got over it.”
“In spite of it I persisted and resolutely went through the whole book. I am repelled and I am attracted by the subject. I sat up half the night reading it--I have never been so held by any book before.”
“Strange!” Constance repeated. “And for a thing so long ago!”
“I threw it aside at last and went to bed--and to dream. And the end--or the beginning--of it is that I am compelled--I use the word advisedly--compelled, Constance, to investigate the whole affair.”
“Oh! but you are not in earnest? Investigate? But it happened seventy years ago! What can be learned after seventy years?”
“I don’t know. I must investigate and find out what I can.”
Constance looked at him with astonishment. He sat at his desk--but with his chair turned towards her. His face was lined and somewhat haggard: he looked like one who is driven: but he looked resolved.
“I cannot help it; I must investigate the case. There is no help for me, Constance--I must. This was the first of the family misfortunes. They have been so heavy and so many that--well, it is weakness to connect them with something unknown.”
“I am sorry--I am very sorry--that you have learned the truth--even though it makes me your cousin.”
“I am very sorry, too. But Fate has found me--as it found my grandfather and my father and that old, old man. Perhaps my own career is also to be cut short.”
“Nonsense, Leonard! You will investigate the case: you will find out nothing: you will throw it aside: you will forget it.”
“No; it is not to be forgotten or thrown aside.”
“Well, make your inquiry as soon as you can and get it over. Oh, I should have thought you the last person in the world to be moved by fancies of compulsion or any other fancies.”
“I should have thought so, too, except for this experience. When I got up, Constance, I resolutely shut the book, and I made up my mind to forget the whole business.”