“I cannot possibly wish that.”
“Or, if you wish, a history of the case shall be written out and shown to every member of the family, and placed with the other documents of our people, so that those who follow shall be able to read and understand the history.”
“No. I want the story absolutely closed, so that it can never again be reopened. In a few years the memory of the event itself will have vanished from the village; your cousins of the Commercial Road will certainly not keep the story alive; besides, they know nothing. There remains only the Book of Extracts. Let us first burn the Book of Extracts.”
Leonard produced the volume. Constance tore out the leaves one by one, rolled them up, laid them neatly in the grate, put the cover on the top, and set light to the whole. In one minute the dreadful story was destroyed; there was no more any evidence, except in the piles of old newspapers which are slowly mouldering in the vaults of the British Museum.
“Never again!” she said. “Never again will we speak of it. Nobody shall know what we discovered. It is our secret—yours and mine. Whose secret should it be but yours and mine?”
“If it were a burden to you, I would it were all mine.”
“It is no burden henceforth. Why should that be a burden which has been forgiven? It is our secret, too, that the suffering was laid upon us, so that we might be led to the discovery of the truth.”
“Were we led? You would make me believe, Constance—even me—in supernatural guidance. But it seems natural, somehow, that you should believe that we were, as you say, led.”
“You, who believe nothing but what you see, you will not understand. Oh! it is so plain to me—so very plain. You have been forced—compelled against your will—to investigate the case. Who compelled you? I know not; but since the same force made me follow you, I think it was that murdered man himself. Confess that you were forced; you said so yourself.”
“It is true that I have been absorbed in the case.”