"I really can not tell you, Miss Dane," she said, shaking her gray head slowly and solemnly. "It has never been used for anything since I have been in the Dane family, and that is nearly thirty years now—just once!"
The thin lips closed down tightly together, and she turned resolutely away, as though to give Beatrix to understand that the tortures of the Inquisition could draw forth no more information from her.
Left to herself, Beatrix speculated continually upon the romance which she felt certain must be connected with the round room in the western wing. She reflected so much upon the subject, and it grew to be so all-absorbing a source of wonder to her lonely girlish heart, that one day she made up her mind quite bravely to seek for information at headquarters. That very day, accidentally encountering old Bernard Dane in the great entrance hall, she ventured to put the question to him.
"Uncle Bernard," she began in a rather shaky voice—for, to tell the truth, she was horribly afraid of the old man—"you gave me permission to go all over the house when I first came here, and I have done so. I have so little to occupy my time," she added, half apologetically. "It has interested me very much to go into all those beautiful rooms. But I would like to ask you a question. Why was that round room built in the tower? For what purpose was it intended? I am greatly interested, and would like to know."
She stopped short, awed by the awful look in his eyes and the strange gray shadow which had settled down upon his face. Not a word was spoken for some minutes; he stood as still as a statue, one hand clutching at the carved back of a Gothic hall chair with such force that one of the elaborate ornaments snapped off in his grasp.
"The round room, eh?" he cried in a harsh, croaking voice—"the round room in the tower? Ha! ha! you have been there, then? I ought to have known that you would have found your way there before you had been under this roof four-and-twenty hours! So you wish to know for what purpose the round room was designed? Ah, Miss Beatrix Dane, you may find that out sooner than you wish, and the knowledge of the truth will drive you mad! In the long black nights and the dreary darksome days, when you will pray for death and find it not, then you will learn the secret which is mercifully hidden from you now. Mercifully—ay, but why should I show mercy to you or yours? Mercy! Who has ever been merciful to me? Do I not owe it to your accursed race that I am what I am? Ah, Miss Beatrix Dane, ask no idle questions. You are fated to know for what purpose that room was built, to know in good time. Don't touch me, girl!"—for she had ventured to lay her hand upon his trembling arm—"don't dare to touch me, or I will strike you down at my feet! The very touch of your hands is pollution!"
She drew back, faint and shivering, as though he had indeed dealt her a blow; her face was as white as marble, her dark eyes dilated with unutterable horror—horror too deep for expression. What was this fearful secret which Bernard Dane held over her head, continually like a two-edged sword? What effect was it destined to have upon her future life? She turned away, faint and trembling. It crept into her mind then—dawning upon her with a strange feeling of uneasiness—that ever since her arrival at the old mansion she had been treated in a strangely formal way, a sort of stand-off-and-don't-touch-me way, which was remarkable, to say the least.
Her room was in a remote wing of the building. Everything there was solely for her own use, set apart for her.
She remembered now, with a faint sickness creeping over her heart, how strangely Mrs. Graves had watched her every movement. Did they suspect that she was going mad? No; it could not be that; for madness is not contagious, and the precautions with which she was surrounded looked greatly as though some contagion was feared and must be guarded against.