For some minutes I sat by the bright fire, lost in aimless, wandering thought, which began with Dame Alice and her cabinet, and which ended somehow with Alan's face, as I had last seen it looking up at me in front of the hall-door.When I had reached that point, I roused myself to decide that I had dreamt long enough, and that it was quite time to go down to the guests and to tea.Iaccordingly donned my best teagown, arranged my hair, and proceeded towards the drawing-room.My way there lay through the great central hall.This apartment was approached from most of the bedrooms in the house through a large, arched doorway at one end of it, which communicated directly with the great staircase.My bedroom, however, which, as I have said, lay among the private apartments of the house, opened into a passage which led into a broad gallery, or upper chamber, stretching right across the end of the hall.From this you descended by means of a small staircase in oak, whose carved balustrade, bending round the corner of the hall, formed one of the prettiest features of the picturesque old room.
The barrier which ran along the front of the gallery was in solid oak, and of such a height that, unless standing close up to it, you could neither see nor be seen by the occupants of the room below.
On approaching this gallery I heard voices in the hall.They were George's and Alan's, evidently in hot discussion.As I issued from the passage, George was speaking, and his voice had that exasperated tone in which an angry man tries to bring to a close an argument in which he has lost his temper."For heaven's sake leave it alone, Alan; I neither can nor will interfere.We have enough to bear from these cursed traditions as it is, without adding one which has no foundation whatever to justify it--a mere contemptible piece of superstition.""No member of our family has a right to call any tradition contemptible which is connected with that place, and you know it,"answered Alan; and though he spoke low, his voice trembled with some strong emotion.A first impulse of hesitation which I had had I checked, feeling that as I had heard so much it was fairer to go on, and I advanced to the top of the staircase.Alan stood by the fireplace facing me, but far too occupied to see me.His last speech had seemingly aroused George to fury, for the latter turned on him now with savage passion.
"Damn it all, Alan!" he cried, "can't you be quiet? I will be master in my own house.Take care, I tell you; the curse may not be quite fulfilled yet after all."As George uttered these words, Alan lifted his eyes to him with a glance of awful horror: his face turned ghastly white; his lips trembled for a moment; and then he answered back with one half-whispered word of supreme appeal--"George!" There was a long-drawn, unutterable anguish in his tone, and his voice, though scarcely audible, penetrated to every corner of the room, and seemed to hang quivering in the air around one after the sound had ceased.Then there was a terrible stillness.Alan stood trembling in every limb, incapable apparently of speech or action, and George faced him, as silent and motionless as he was.For an instant they remained thus, while I looked breathlessly on.Then George, with a muttered imprecation, turned on his heel and left the room.Alan followed him as he went with dull lifeless eyes; and as the door closed he breathed deeply, with a breath that was almost a groan.
Taking my courage in both hands, I now descended the stairs, and at the sound of my footfall he glanced up, started, and then came rapidly to meet me.
"Evie! you here," he said; "I did not notice you.How long have you been here?" He was still quite white, and I noticed that he panted for breath as he spoke.
"Not long," I answered, timidly, and rather spasmodically; "I only heard a sentence or two.You wanted George to do something about some tradition or other,--and he was angry,--and he said something about the curse."While I spoke Alan kept his eyes fixed on mine, reading through them, as I knew, into my mind.When I had finished he turned his gaze away satisfied, and answered very quietly, "Yes, that was it."Then he went back to the fireplace, rested his arm against the high mantelpiece above it, and leaning his forehead on his arm, remained silently looking into the fire.I could see by his bent brow and compressed lips that he was engaged upon some earnest train of thought or reasoning, and I stood waiting--worried, puzzled, curious, but above all things, pitiful, and oh! longing so intensely to help him if I could.Presently he straightened himself a little, and addressed me more in his ordinary tone of voice, though without looking round."So I hear they have changed your room.""Yes," I answered.And then, flushing rather, "Is that what you and George have been quarreling about?" I received no reply, and taking this silence for assent, I went on deprecatingly, "Because you know, if it was, I think you are rather foolish, Alan.As Iunderstand, two girls are said to have died in that room more than a hundred years ago, and for that reason there is a prejudice against putting a girl to sleep there.That is all.Merely a vague, unreasonable tradition."Alan took a moment to answer.
"Yes," he said at length, speaking slowly, and as if replying to arguments in his own mind as much as to those which I had uttered.
"Yes, it is nothing but a tradition after all, and that of the very vaguest and most unsupported kind.""Is there even any proof that girls have not slept there since those two died?" I asked.I think that the suggestion conveyed in this question was a relief to him, for after a moment's pause, as if to search his memory, he turned round.
