"It can never roll away, Percival!" she answered in a low but firm voice. "You have verily believed all to be safe and well, because you believed the curse in me to be wholly dead. It is not dead, and I would to God I had sooner known its nature, that I might have spared you this pain! Rhiwallon's marvellous cure may be for the healing of others, but over the woe of our miserable house it has proved itself powerless! The shadows of my youth were no deception, Percival, but in my ignorance I knew not their cause, nor to what dark temptation the evil spirit prompted me. Now I know it by its own terrible name, and I will ne'er suffer others after me to bear the woe my father has borne, and which, though it has been mercifully spared to me, may descend with deadly hand upon my children. 'The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children even unto the third and fourth generation!' So it has been in our unhappy house, Percival, and so, I fear me, it must ever be. It is true that in me the sin has borne no fruit, and does but lie a hidden root of evil in my soul, alas, long forgotten in this dream of bliss, and ne'er till now understood! Yet here in me it lies, a fatal inheritance, and with me it shall perish. I will never marry you, Percival! I can better bear to see you suffer now with a bitter pain that comes straight from the hand of God, than hereafter with the pain and shame which your own wife or child might bring upon you. And for me--oh, my God, let me not think upon my own suffering! let this poor heart fail, and yield even now in its bitter misery! Percival, Percival, say you can forgive me, or my heart must break!" And the unnatural calmness giving way at last, she flung herself into his arms, and wept bitterly.