“An ugly story, sure enough,” said I, shrugging my shoulders with a chilly sensation; “but what has it to do with your business?”
“Perhaps nothing; but there is one thing which would go for nothing in the way of legal evidence, but which has impressed me, nevertheless. The date of the second coming-together of my ancestor and his wife was 1698.”
“Well?”
“If you look at that paper I gave you you’ll see the date of Armstrong’s death is also 1698.”
“Still I don’t see the point.”
“It’s simply this: the—Thing I saw was the condemned soul of that Archibald Armstrong. Who he may have been I don’t know; but I can’t help believing that my ancestor knew him when he was still in the flesh. They had a feud, perhaps—maybe about this very marriage—of course you understand I’m only supposing a case. Well, Calbot gets the better of his rival, and is married. Then Armstrong exerts his malignant ingenuity to set them at odds with each other. He may have played on the superstitious fancies which they probably shared with others of that age, and at last we may suppose he accomplished their separation.”
“An ingenious idea,” I admitted, “but what about your date?”
“Why, on hearing of his death, they would naturally suppose all danger over, and that they might live together unmolested. And from this point you may differ with me or not, as you choose. I believe that it was only after Armstrong was dead that his power for evil became commensurate with his will. I believe, Drayton,” said Calbot, drawing himself up to his full height, and emphasising his words with the slow gesture of his right arm, “that the soul of that dead man haunted that wretched couple from the day of his death until the whole tragedy was consummated—until the woman died and the man went mad. And I believe that his devilish malignity has lived on to this day, and wreaked itself, a second time, on Miss Burleigh and myself.”
There was a short pause, during which my poor friend stood tapping one foot on the hearth-rug, his eyes bent downwards in sombre abstraction.