"He didn't believe, then, in the curse?"
"Well, rather, he thought nothing about it. Until, that is, the time came when it took effect, to break his heart and end his life."
"How do you mean?"
There was silence for a little. Alan had turned away his head, so that I could not see his face. Then—
"I suppose you have never been told the true story of why Jack left the country?"
"No. Was he—is he—?"
"He is one victim of the curse in this generation, and I, God help me, am the other, and perhaps more wretched one."
His voice trembled and broke, and for the first time that day I almost forgot the mysterious horror of the night before, in my pity for the actual, tangible suffering before me. I stretched out my hand to his, and his fingers closed on mine with a sudden, painful grip. Then quietly—
"I will tell you the story," he said, "though since that miserable time I have spoken of it to no one."
There was a pause before he began. He lay there by my side, his gaze turned across me up the sunbright, autumn-tinted glen, but his eyes shadowed by the memories which he was striving to recall and arrange in due order in his mind. And when he did speak it was not directly to begin the promised recital.