Not knowing whither she went, only impelled by a restless craving to rush from herself and her own thoughts, Shanno's steps unconsciously directed themselves up the old familiar pathway towards Craig Aran Peak, and presently, as the cold night air refreshed her burning brain, her thoughts began to collect themselves into more definite shape, and she tried to think collectedly of the tale she had heard, and of its bearing upon her life, ever repeating half-aloud the words which seemed to be branding themselves as with a hot iron into her brain. "The curse is _not_ dead, mother--it is not!" Alas, now she knew the meaning of that strange, black shadow, which, from her early childhood, had, though but for brief and fleeting moments, come at intervals between her and the sunlight of her happy life, terrifying her by its nameless horror, seeming, as it were, to be the very presence of some evil thing at her side, impelling her to some horrible, unknown sin, filling her with a vague yet dreadful craving for _something_--she knew not what! Strange, mysterious, almost ever unspoken trouble of her childhood's and girlhood's days, too intangible and nameless to be confessed or shared with any one since that one occasion when she had spoken of it to her guardian, yet none the less real and full of intense suffering--a dark, mysterious veil, drawn for a few short hours at intervals in her life between her and all that was good and beautiful--wrestled with in secret agonies of prayer and tears, and passing again at last as suddenly as it had come, to be no more remembered until it should fall once again! And now for two happy, unutterably happy years it had been unknown. Since her first meeting two summers ago, in this same mountain loneliness, with him who was the very sunlight of her existence, no shadow of the old trouble had e'er marred her bliss; it was as though the pure and holy presence of Sir Galahad had once and for all exorcised the evil spirit, and as though the subtle influences breathed forth unconsciously from his beautiful life and character, and filling her own life with untold joy and gladness, had for ever banished the brief dreams of darkness which had tortured her--banished them so completely that it had seemed of late as though they had never been, so utterly had all recollection of them been swallowed up by her love for him. But now--now the black shadow had fallen again, and this time with horrible revealed meaning! It was the awful curse of the drink-craving, which had destroyed generation after generation of her forefathers, that she, a pure and innocent maiden, full of holy thoughts and aspirations, had been doomed unconsciously to bear, and now consciously to wrestle with as a terrible foe, suddenly starting forth between her and all her hopes of happiness. Dare she, knowing what she now knew, marry Percival Vere, and let the curse be perpetuated through still further