"Aunt Fanny, what in the world do you mean to do now?" said the girl.
"You are witness, Hetty; you are witness to what I mean to do. It is all for the sake of the Family. What are poor folks like us and our consciences, and our secrets, compared to the Family? This book has not done its work yet. Now I am going to take an oath on the Testament. I, Frances Armitage, swear by the God above, and the Bible He has given us, that I will never tell to mortal man the truth about this murder."
Mrs. Armitage finished her words by pressing the Testament to her lips.
"Now you swear," she said, giving the book back again to her niece.
Hetty did so. Her voice came out in broken sobs. Mrs. Armitage replaced the Testament on the top shelf of Hetty's little bookcase.
"There," she said, wiping her brow, "that's done. You saw the murder committed; you and I have sworn that we'll never tell what we know. We needn't talk of it any more. Another man will swing for it. Let him swing. He is a nice fellow, too. He showed me the photograph of his mother one day. She had white hair and eyes like his; she looked like a lady every inch of her. Mr. Everett said, 'I am her only child, Mrs. Armitage; I'm all she has got.' He had a pleasant smile—wonderful, and a good face. Poor lad, if it wasn't the Family I had to be true to I wouldn't let him swing. They say downstairs that the circumstantial evidence is black against him."
"Perhaps, after all, they cannot convict him, Aunt."
"What do you know about it? I say they can and will, but don't let us talk of it any more. The one thing you and I have to do is to be true to the Family. There's not a second thought to be given to the matter. Sit down, Hetty; don't keep hovering about like that. I think I had better send you away from home; only I forgot, you are sure to be called upon as a witness. You must see that your face doesn't betray you when you're cross-examined."
"No, it won't," said the girl. "I've got you to help me now. I can talk about it sometimes, and it won't lie so heavily on my heart. Aunt Fanny, do you really think Mr. Awdrey forgets?"
"Do I think it? I know it. I don't trouble to think about what I know. It's in their blood, I tell you. The things they ought to remember are wiped out of their brains as clean as if you washed a slate after using it. My mother was cook in the Family, and her mother and her mother before her again. We are Perrys, and the Perrys had always a turn for cooking. We've cooked the dinner up at the Court for close on a hundred years. Don't you suppose I know their ways by this time? Oh, I could tell you of fearful things. There have been dark deeds done before now, and the men who did them had no more memory of their own sin than if they were babies of a month old. There was a Squire—two generations back he was—my grandmother knew him—and he had a son. The mother was—! but there! where's the use of going into that. The mother died raving mad, and the Squire knew no more what he had done than the babe unborn. Folks call it the curse of God. It's an awful doom, and it always comes on just as it has fallen on the young Squire. There comes a fit of passion—a desperate deed is done or a desperate sorrow is met, and all is blank. They wither up afterward just as if the drought was in them. He'll die young, the young Squire will, just like his forefathers. What's the good of crying, Hetty? Crying won't save him—he'll die young. Blood for blood. God will require that young man's blood at his hands. He can't escape—it's in his race; but at least he shan't hang for it—if you and I can keep him from the gallows. Hetty, put your hand in mine and tell me all over again what you saw."