“You asked a perfectly natural question, Prince,” he replied. “There is no reason why you should not know the truth. Near that wood occurred the tragedy which drove me from England for so many years.”
“I am deeply grieved,” the Prince began—
“It is false sentiment to avoid allusions to it,” Dominey interrupted. “I was attacked there one night by a man who had some cause for offence against me. We fought, and I reached home in a somewhat alarming state. My condition terrified my wife so much that she has been an invalid ever since. But here is the point which has given birth to all these superstitions, and which made me for many years a suspected person. The man with whom I fought has never been seen since.”
Terniloff was at once too fascinated by the story and puzzled by his host's manner of telling it to maintain his apologetic attitude.
“Never seen since!” he repeated.
“My own memory as to the end of our fight is uncertain,” Dominey continued. “My impression is that I left my assailant unconscious upon the ground.”
“Then it is his ghost, I imagine, who haunts the Black Wood?”
Dominey shook himself as one who would get rid of an unwholesome thought.
“The wood itself, Prince,” he explained, as they walked along, “is a noisome place. There are quagmires even in the middle of it, where a man may sink in and be never heard of again. Every sort of vermin abounds there, every unclean insect and bird are to be found in the thickets. I suppose the character of the place has encouraged the local superstition in which every one of those men firmly believes.”
“They absolutely believe the place to be haunted, then?”