I turned with him, and we walked back to the Grange, Alan quickening his pace as he went, till I almost had to run by his side.As we approached the dreaded room my sense of repulsion became almost unbearable; but I was now infected by his excitement, though I but dimly comprehended its cause.We met no one on our way, and in a moment he had hurried me into the house, up the stairs, and along the narrow passage, and I was once more in the east room, and in the presence of all the memories of that accursed night.For an instant I stood strengthless, helpless, on the threshold, my gaze fixed panic-stricken on the spot 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 Ihad 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sheath.Still without a word he took it up, and reaching his right hand round me, for Icould not now have stood had he withdrawn his support, with a swift strong jerk he unsheathed the blade.There in the clear autumn sunshine I could see the same dull stains I had marked in the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 had handed him over to the charge of a bright-eyed Western girl, to whom the whole story had been told, and who showed herself ready and anxious to help in building up again the broken life of her English lover.To judge from the letters that we have since received, she has shown herself well fitted for the task.Among other things she has money, and Jack's worldly affairs have so prospered that George declares that he can well afford now to waste some of his superfluous cash upon farming a few of his elder brother's acres.The idea seems to smile upon Jack, and I have every hope this winter of being able to institute an actual comparison between our small boy, his namesake, and his own three-year-old Alan.The comparison, by the way, will have to be conditional, for Jacket--the name by which my son and heir is familiarly known--is but a little more than two.
I turn my eyes for a moment, and they fall upon the northern corner of the East Room, which shows round the edge of the house.Then the skeleton leaps from the cupboard of my memory; the icy hand which lies ever near my soul grips it suddenly with a chill shudder.Not for nothing was that wretched woman's life interwoven with my own, if only for an hour; not for nothing did my spirit harbor a conflict and an agony, which, thank God, are far from its own story.Though Margaret Mervyn's dagger failed to pierce my flesh, the wound in my soul may never wholly be healed.I know that that is so; and yet as I turn to start through the sunshine to the cedar shade and its laughing occupants, I whisper to myself with fervent conviction, "It was worth it."
End
