Chapter 3

Lady Catafalque had roused herself and was wringing her long mittened hands and moaning feebly. “Paul,” she said, “you must not tell her; it will kill her; she is not strong!” Her husband seemed undecided, and I myself began to feel exquisitely uncomfortable. Chlorine’s words pointed to something infinitely more terrible than a mere solicitor.

“Poor girl,” said Sir Paul at last, “it was for your own good that the whole truth has been thus concealed from you; but now, perhaps, the time has come when the truest kindness will be to reveal all. What do you say, Augustus?” “I—I agree with you,” I replied faintly; “she ought to be told.”

“Precisely!” he said. “Break to her, then, the nature of the ordeal which lies before you.”

It was the very thing which I wanted to be broken to me! I would have given the world to know all about it myself, and so I stared at his gloomy old face with eyes that must have betrayed my helpless dismay. At last I saved myself by suggesting that such a story would come less harshly from a parent’s lips.

“Well, so be it,” he said. “Chlorine, compose yourself, dearest one; sit down there, and summon up all your fortitude to hear what I am about to tell you. You must know, then—I think you had better let your mother give you a cup of tea before I begin; it will steady your nerves.”

During the delay which followed—for Sir Paul did not consider his daughter sufficiently fortified until she had taken at least three cups—I suffered tortures of suspense, which I dared not betray.

They never thought of offering me any tea, though the merest observer might have noticed how very badly I wanted it.

At last the baronet was satisfied, and not without a sort of gloomy enjoyment and a proud relish of the distinction implied in his exceptional affliction, he began his weird and almost incredible tale.

“It is now,” said he, “some centuries since our ill-fated house was first afflicted with the family curse which still attends it. A certain Humfrey de Catafalque, by his acquaintance with the black art, as it was said, had procured the services of a species of familiar, a dread and supernatural being. For some reason he had conceived a bitter enmity towards his nearest relations, whom he hated with a virulence that not even death could soften. For, by a refinement of malice, he bequeathed this baleful thing to his descendants forever, as an inalienable heirloom! And to this day it follows the title—and the head of the family for the time being is bound to provide it with a secret apartment under his own roof. But that is not the worst as each member of our house succeeds to the ancestral rank and honors, he must seek an interview with ‘The Curse,’ as it has been styled for generations. And, in that interview, it is decided whether the spell is to be broken and the Curse depart from us forever—or whether it is to continue its blighting influence, and hold yet another life in miserable thraldom.”

“And are you one of its thralls then, papa?” faltered Chlorine.