“I cannot help it; I must investigate the case. There is no help for me, Constance—I must. This was the first of the family misfortunes. They have been so heavy and so many that—well, it is weakness to connect them with something unknown.”
“I am sorry—I am very sorry—that you have learned the truth—even though it makes me your cousin.”
“I am very sorry, too. But Fate has found me—as it found my grandfather and my father and that old, old man. Perhaps my own career is also to be cut short.”
“Nonsense, Leonard! You will investigate the case: you will find out nothing: you will throw it aside: you will forget it.”
“No; it is not to be forgotten or thrown aside.”
“Well, make your inquiry as soon as you can and get it over. Oh, I should have thought you the last person in the world to be moved by fancies of compulsion or any other fancies.”
“I should have thought so, too, except for this experience. When I got up, Constance, I resolutely shut the book, and I made up my mind to forget the whole business.”
“And you could not, I suppose?”
“I could not. I found it impossible to fix my attention, so I pulled out the book again and went all over it from the beginning once more. Constance, it is the most remarkable story I ever read. You shall read it yourself.”
“If I do, not even my duty to our ancestor will make me take it so seriously as you are doing.”