“Although it is a plausible theory, there is one weak point in it.”
Landon looked at her inquiringly, and she said:
“If a strain of madness in the race led its members to suicide, why did one who was alien to them—a hired man on the place, I think you said—prove the victim in one decade?”
“That fact escaped my mind while I was speaking,” he replied, “so my theory really has no ground to stand on. The horror-haunted house must really have some malign influence, must be haunted, as the young girl averred.”
“It is a strange story you have told us, Mr. Landon, and makes the young girl more interesting to us than before. I hope you will not entirely give up the search, for success would be liberally rewarded,” said Mrs. Beresford, as she handed him a munificent check for his two weeks’ services.
He bowed himself out, and then the mask of conventionality fell from the proud woman’s face, and it grew sad to the verge of tears.
“Oh, my son, my son!” she sobbed under her breath, and the thought of him was like a sword in her wounded heart.
She had that day received from St. George the sorrowful letter in which he had renounced home and wealth for Love’s sake.
Bitter was her anger, deep the wound in her heart, as she read the brief, manly words.
“He is stubborn, foolish!” she cried, as she flung the letter to Alva.