“ ‘The friends of Mr. Campaigne, however, speedily discovered that he was entirely changed in consequence of the double shock of the deaths of brother and sister, brother-in-law and wife, in one day. He ceased to take interest in anything; he refused to see his friends; he would not even notice his children; he gradually retreated entirely into himself; he left his business affairs to an agent; he dismissed his servants. He sent his children to the care of a distant cousin to get them out of the way; he never left the house at all except to walk on the terrace; he kept neither horses nor dogs; he never spoke to anyone; he had never been known to speak for all these years except once, and then two or three words to me.”
“The following,” he went on, “is also a part of the case:
“ ‘We have been a very unfortunate family. Of Mr. Campaigne’s three children, the eldest committed suicide for no reason discoverable, the next was drowned at sea, the third married a bankrupt tradesman, and dropped very low down in the world. Of the next generation, the eldest, my father, died at an early age and at a time when his prospects were as bright as those of any young member of the House; his second brother has just confessed that he has led a life of pretence and deception; and his younger brother, who was sent abroad for his profligacy, told me yesterday that he is about to become bankrupt, while another member of the family is threatened with ruin, and, to judge from his terror, with worse than ruin.’ ”
“There are still two or three facts that you have omitted,” said Constance. “We had better have them all.”
“What are they?”
“You have not mentioned that the boy went into the wood early in the morning and found no one; that the woman in the cottage—this was the voice of the grave that we asked for and obtained—said that nobody at all had been through the wood that day until the gentlemen appeared.”
“We will consider everything. But remember, Constance, we are sworn not to go through this ceremony again whatever the force that draws us.”
“We have forgotten; there is the half-finished letter that we found upon the table. Read that again, Leonard.”
It was in one envelope among the papers. Leonard took it out.
“There is nothing in it that we do not know. Langley was staying in the house.”