“I know no more than you do why some early ancestor laid his ban upon this room.  But from my earliest years I was given to understand that there was one latch in the house which was never to be lifted; that any fault would be forgiven sooner than that; that the honour of the whole family stood in the way of disobedience, and that I was to preserve that honour to my dying day.  You will say that all this is fantastic, and wonder that sane people in these modern times should subject themselves to such a ridiculous restriction, especially when no good reason was alleged, and the very source of the tradition from which it sprung forgotten.  You are right; but if you look long into human nature, you will see that the bonds which hold the firmest are not material ones—­that an idea will make a man and mould a character—­that it lies at the source of all heroisms and is to be courted or feared as the case may be.

“For me it possessed a power proportionate to my loneliness.  I don’t think there was ever a more lonely child.  My father and mother were so unhappy in each other’s companionship that one or other of them was almost always away.  But I saw little of either even when they were at home.  The constraint in their attitude towards each other affected their conduct towards me.  I have asked myself more than once if either of them had any real affection for me.  To my father I spoke of her; to her of him; and never pleasurably.  This I am forced to say, or you cannot understand my story.  Would to God I could tell another tale!  Would to God I had such memories as other men have of a father’s clasp, a mother’s kiss—­but no! my grief, already profound, might have become abysmal.  Perhaps it is best as it is; only, I might have been a different child, and made for myself a different fate--who knows.

“As it was, I was thrown almost entirely upon my own resources for any amusement.  This led me to a discovery I made one day.  In a far part of the cellar behind some heavy casks, I found a little door.  It was so low—­so exactly fitted to my small body, that I had the greatest desire to enter it.  But I could not get around the casks.  At last an expedient occurred to me.  We had an old servant who came nearer loving me than any one else.  One day when I chanced to be alone in the cellar, I took out my ball and began throwing it about.  Finally it landed behind the casks, and I ran with a beseeching cry to Michael, to move them.

“It was a task requiring no little strength and address, but he managed, after a few herculean efforts, to shift them aside and I saw with delight, my way opened to that mysterious little door.  But I did not approach it then; some instinct deterred me.  But when the opportunity came for me to venture there alone, I did so, in the most adventurous spirit, and began my operations by sliding behind the casks and testing the handle of the little door.  It turned, and after a pull or two the door yielded.