"Reference to my journal will show him that the first visible manifestation of his mother's disease was exhibited about five months before he was born. We were then inhabiting a house in Switzerland, and on the night her fatal inheritance took active shape and form we had been entertaining a party of friends--one of whom was a foul villain--and my wife had been singing many times a Tyrolean air of which she was passionately fond. I copy the music of the air here, praying to God that my son may not be familiar with it." (Here followed a few bars of music, which I had no doubt formed the air to which Mrs. Fortress had referred in her statement, and mention of which will also be found in the record of his life made by Gabriel Carew.) "After the almost tragic events of that night my wife was continually singing this air; I have heard her hum it in her sleep. When my son was born she suckled the child--an error I deeply deplore. The physicians I consulted are of one opinion. If my son Gabriel inherits in its worst form his mother's disease, the ghost of this air will haunt him from time to time. It may not be so clear to his senses that he could sing it aloud, but he would indubitably recognise it if he heard it by accident. It is for a test that I copy the music; it is for my son to apply it. Should the air be entirely unfamiliar to him, should it fail to recall any sensations through which he has passed, the inheritance transmitted to him by his mother--if it ever assume practical shape--will exhibit itself in a milder and less ruthless form. The physicians aver that at some time or other, if Gabriel live long, some such manifestation will most surely take place, and that if it occur in its worst phase, the key-note to the occurrence may be found in the affections. "This is as much as I can at present find strength to set down. I shall take an opportunity to confer with my son upon this gloomy matter, but I have a reluctance to approach the subject personally with him during the lifetime of his mother. It will need an almost superhuman courage on my part to speak of such a matter to my own son, but I must nerve my soul to the task. If he reproach me, if he curse me, I must bear it humbly. Once more I implore his forgiveness." XXI. The papers lay before me, and I was still under the spell of the fatal revelation when the clock struck two. The chiming of the hour awoke me as it were, and my mind became busy with thought of my own concerns. Reginald's doom was pronounced. Never must he and Gabriel Carew's daughter be allowed to wed. Death were preferable.