Chapter 3

I saw very little ground for expecting to emerge as anything of the kind, or for that matter to emerge at all, except in installments—for the master-word which was to abash the demon was probably inside the packet of instructions, and that was certainly somewhere at the bottom of the sea, outside Melbourne, fathoms below the surface.

I could bear no more. “It’s simply astonishing to me,” I said, “that in the nineteenth century, hardly six miles from Charing Cross, you can calmly allow this hideous ‘Curse,’ or whatever you call it, to have things all its own way like this.”

“What can I do, Augustus?” he asked helplessly.

“Do? Anything!” I retorted wildly (for I scarcely knew what I said). “Take it out for an airing (it must want an airing by this time); take it out—and lose it! Or get both the archbishops to step in and lay it for you. Sell the house, and make the purchaser take it at a valuation, with the other fixtures. I certainly would not live under the same roof with it. And I want you to understand one thing—I was never told all this; I have been kept in the dark about it. Of course I knew there was some kind of a curse in the family—but I never dreamed of anything so bad as this, and I never had any intention of being boxed up alone with it either. I shall not go near the Gray Chamber!”

“Not go near it!” they all cried aghast.

“Not on any account,” I said, for I felt firmer and easier now that I had taken up this position.

“If the Curse has any business with me, let it come down and settle it here before you all in a plain straightforward manner. Let us go about it in a businesslike way. On second thoughts,” I added, fearing lest they should find means of carrying out this suggestion, “I won’t meet it anywhere!”

“And why—why won’t you meet it?” they asked breathlessly.

“Because,” I explained desperately, “because I’m—I’m a materialist.” (I had not been previously aware that I had any decided opinions on the question, but I could not stay then to consider the point.) “How can I have any dealings with a preposterous supernatural something which my reason forbids me to believe in? You see my difficulty? It would be inconsistent, to begin with, and—and extremely painful to both sides.”

“No more of this ribaldry,” said Sir Paul sternly. “It may be terribly remembered against you when the hour comes. Keep a guard over your tongue, for all our sakes, and more especially your own. Recollect that the Curse knows all that passes beneath this roof. And do not forget, too, that you are pledged—irrevocably pledged. You must confront the Curse!”

Only a short hour ago, and I had counted Chlorine’s fortune and Chlorine as virtually mine; and now I saw my golden dreams roughly shattered forever! And, oh, what a wrench it was to tear myself from them! What it cost me to speak the words that barred my Paradise to me forever!