The earl, too greatly overwhelmed on the previous evening by the perusal of his own letter and its wholly-unexpected contents, had forgotten to deliver the missive enclosed under the same cover to the physician, and having all through the day refused admission even to his faithful attendant, it had lain unnoticed till an hour before the expected arrival of his wife and child, when he had suddenly and without a word placed it in Rhiwallon's hand, bidding him read it alone. The shock of finding that his discovery had after all been unavailing, that not only must the fair young girl, exact counterpart of that beautiful victim of the curse whose memory he yet faithfully worshipped, suffer the same unalterable doom as that of her ancestors, but that by his own advice and unhesitating assurance the young chaplain, whom he dearly loved, had gladly taken to his lips the cup of joy which had been since in a moment dashed from them ere fully tasted, had been too great a blow to the failing strength of the once stalwart Black Horseman, and he lay so long in a deathlike swoon that Percival became alarmed. However, the remedies applied by the young man at length took effect, and Rhiwallon rose slowly to his feet, and tottered to his chair. "My years have been spent in vain, Percival," he groaned, "and given to a phantom which has but mocked me, and made me the wretched instrument of destroying your fairest hopes! I have lived but to deceive you, Percival,--you whom I had learned to love as a dear son, and whose happiness I believed in my deluded folly I had secured! Who was I that I should undo the curse of generations! Yet fain would I have freed yon fair child, image of yourself, my beautiful Gwendolen, my lost love, whom my wisdom came too late to free! Methought, as I toiled, you oft smiled upon my labours, and blessed that discovery for whose tardiness I cursed myself in vain! Methought, had I saved yon sweet Primrose, your heart would have thanked me and your spirit rejoiced in glad freedom! But alas, what have availed these long years of study, and sleepless nights of vain research and mad experiment! Nought, Percival, nought--and yet methought the victory won! Save in some few moments of dim misgiving from which I have fled as from some evil shadow, I have never doubted my final triumph, nor repented me of the blind confidence in which I bade you go forth merrily to your bridal. Yet there have been those rare moments of strange misgiving which do verily now haunt me with miserable reproach! Speak aloud your own reproaches, Percival! Upbraid me for thus falsely alluring you into paths of pleasantness, which are now so cruelly strewn with thorns, and spare me not!"