VIII

Presently he drew his shoulders together with a slight determined jerk, threw himself back upon the grass, and turning to me, with that tremulous, haggard smile upon his lips which I knew so well, but which had never before struck me with such infinite pathos, “Luckily,” he said, “there are other things to do in life besides being happy.  Only perhaps you understand now what I meant last night when I spoke of things which flesh and blood cannot bear, and yet which must be borne.”

Suddenly and sharply his words roused again into activity the loathsome memory which my interest in his story had partially deadened.  He noticed the quick involuntary contraction of my muscles, and read it aright.  “That reminds me,” he went on; “I must claim your promise.  I have told you my story.  Now, tell me yours.”

I told him; not as I have set it down here, though perhaps even in greater detail, but incoherently, bit by bit, while he helped me out with gentle questions, quickly comprehending gestures, and patient waiting during the pauses of exhaustion which perforce interposed themselves.  As my story approached its climax, his agitation grew almost equal to my own, and he listened to the close, his teeth clenched, his brows bent, as if passing again with me through that awful conflict.  When I had finished, it was some moments before either of us could speak; and then he burst forth into bitter self-reproach for having so far yielded to his brother’s angry obstinacy as to allow me to sleep the third night in that fatal room.

“It was cowardice,” he said, “sheer cowardice!  After all that has happened, I dared not have a quarrel with one of my own blood.  And yet if I had not hardened my heart, I had reason to know what I was risking.”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Those other two girls who slept there,” he said, breathlessly; “it was in each case after the third night there that they were found dead—­dead, Evie, so runs the story, with a mark upon their necks similar in shape and position to the death-wound which Margaret Mervyn inflicted upon herself.”

I could not speak, but I clutched his hand with an almost convulsive grip.

“And I knew the story,—­I knew it!” he cried.  “As boys we were not allowed to hear much of our family traditions, but this one I knew.  When my father redid the interior of the east room, he removed at the same time a board from above the doorway outside, on which had been written—­it is said by Dame Alice herself—­a warning upon this very subject.  I happened to be present when our old housekeeper, who had been his nurse, remonstrated with him warmly upon this act; and I asked her afterwards what the board was, and why she cared about it so much.  In her excitement she told me the story of those unhappy girls, repeating again and again that, if the warning were taken away, evil would come of it.”