where I had taken such awful part in that phantom
tragedy of evil; then Alan threw his arm round me,
and drew me hastily on in front of the cabinet.
Without a pause, giving himself time neither to speak
nor think, he stretched out his left hand and moved
the buttons one after another. How or in what
direction he moved them I know not; but as the last
turned with a click, the doors, which no mortal hand
had unclosed for three hundred years, flew back, and
the cabinet stood open. I gave a little gasp
of fear. Alan pressed his lips closely together,
and turned to me with eager questioning in his eyes.
I pointed in answer tremblingly at the drawer which
I had seen open the night before. He drew it
out, and there on its satin bed lay the dagger in
its silver sheath. Still without a word he took
it up, and reaching his right hand round me, for I
could not now have stood had he withdrawn his support,
with a swift strong jerk he unsheathed the blade.
There in the clear autumn sunshine I could see the
same dull stains I had marked in the flickering candle-light,
and over them, still ruddy and moist, were the drops
of my own half-dried blood. I grasped the lapel
of his coat with both my hands, and clung to him like
a child in terror, while the eyes of both of us remained
fixed as if fascinated upon the knife-blade.
Then, with a sudden start of memory, Alan raised
his to the cornice of the cabinet, and mine followed.
No change that I could detect had taken place in
that twisted goldwork; but there, clear in the sight
of us both, stood forth the words of the magic motto:
“Pure blood shed
by the blood-stained knife
Ends Mervyn shame,
heals Mervyn strife.”
In low steady tones Alan read out the lines, and then
there was silence—on my part of stunned
bewilderment, the bewilderment of a spirit overwhelmed
beyond the power of comprehension by rushing, conflicting
emotions. Alan pressed me closer to him, while
the silence seemed to throb with the beating of his
heart and the panting of his breath. But except
for that he remained motionless, gazing at the golden
message before him. At length I felt a movement,
and looking up saw his face turned down towards mine,
the lips quivering, the cheeks flushed, the eyes soft
with passionate feeling. “We are saved,
my darling,” he whispered; “saved, and
through you.” Then he bent his head lower,
and there in that room of horror, I received the first
long lover’s kiss from my own dear husband’s
lips.
. . . .
. .
My husband, yes; but not till some time after that.
Alan’s first act, when he had once fully realized
that the curse was indeed removed, was—throwing
his budding practice to the winds—to set
sail for America. There he sought out Jack, and
labored hard to impart to him some of his own newfound
hope. It was slow work, but he succeeded at
last; and only left him when, two years later, he