'Very deeply, Winnie.'
Then, pulling from my pocket the silver casket and the parchment scroll, I said, 'It has relation to these.'
'That I felt,' said she; 'how could it be otherwise? Oh, the miscreant! I curse him; I curse him!'
'Winifred,' I said, 'between me and this casket, and the cross mentioned in this scroll, there is a mysterious link. The cross is an amulet, an heirloom of dreadful potency for good and ill. It has been disturbed; it has been stolen from my father's grave, and there is but one way of setting right that disturbance. To avert unspeakable calamity from falling upon two entire families (the family of Aylwin and that of her to whom this amulet was given) a sacrifice is demanded.'
'Henry, you terrify me to death. What is the sacrifice? Oh God! Oh
God!'
'My father's son must die, Winnie.'
She turned ashen pale, but struggling to be playful, she said, 'I fear that the family of Aylwin and the family of somebody else must even take the calamity and bear it; for I don't mean my Henry to die, let me assure both families of that.'
'Ah! but, Winnie, I am under a solemn oath and pledge to bear this penalty; and we part to-night, That shriek which so appalled you—'
'Well, well, the shriek?' said she, in a frenzy of impatience.
I made no answer, but she answered herself.