’I thought over the matter for a minute, and then I said to him, “Sinfi Lovell knows Raxton as well as Snowdon, and must have been very familiar with the crime.  I can only suppose that she has brooded so long over the enormity of the offence and the appalling words of the curse that she has actually come at last to believe that poor, simple-minded Panuel Lovell is the offender, and that she, as his child, has inherited the curse.”

’"A most admirable solution of the mystery,” he said, his face beaming with delight.’

XII

When Winnie got to this point she said, ’Yes, Henry, poor Sinfi seems in some unaccountable way to have learnt all about that piece of parchment and the curse written upon it.  She has been under the extraordinary delusion that her own father, poor Panuel Lovell, was the violator of the tomb, and that she has inherited the curse.’

‘Good God, Winnie!’ I exclaimed; and when I recalled what I had seen of Sinfi in the cottage, I was racked with perplexity, pity, and wonder.  What could it mean?

‘Yes,’ said Winifred, ’she has been possessed by this astounding delusion, and it used to bring on fits which were appalling to witness.  They are passed now, however.’

‘Is she recovered now?’

‘Mr. D’Arcy,’ said Winnie, ’assured me that, in the opinion of the doctor, the delusion would not he permanent, but that Sinfi would soon be entirely restored to health.  While Mr. D’Arcy and I were talking about her Sinfi came through the wicket again.  Rushing up to me and seizing my hand, she said,

’"Oh, Winnie, how I must have skeared you!  I dare say Mr. D’Arcy has told you that I’ve been subject to fits o’ late.  It was comin’ on you suddint as I did under the tree that brought it on.  I wouldn’t let Mr. D’Arcy tell you I wur here until I wur quite sure I should have no more on ’em, but the doctor said this very day that I wur now quite well.”

’My mind ran all night long upon the mystery of Sinfi Lovell.  Mr. D’Arcy’s explanation of her appearance at Hurstcote Manor was certainly clear enough, but somehow its very clearness aroused suspicion—­no, I will not say suspicion—­misgivings.  If he had been able, while he seemed so frank and open, to keep away from me a secret—­I mean the secret of Sinfi Lovell’s being concealed in the house—­what secrets might he not be concealing from me about my own mystery?  Did he not know everything that occurred during that period which was a blank in my mind, the period from my sinking down on the sands to my waking up in his house?

’From the very first, indeed, a feeling of mystery had haunted me.  I had often pondered over every circumstance that attended my waking into life, but that incident which was the most firmly fixed in my mind was the sight of the feet of a tall woman whose body was hid by the screen between my couch and the other one.  When I asked Mr. D’Arcy about this, he did not say in so many words that I was suffering from a delusion about those feet, but he talked about the illusion which generally accompanied a recovery from such illnesses as mine.  Now of course I felt sure that Sinfi was the person I had seen on the couch.  But why was she there?