"Well, I should have imagined that would be your idea, or I would not have opened my mind upon a gruesome tradition which is supposed to concern you and yours," was the rector's reply, in a more careless tone than he had adopted yet. One side of the prophecy, however, he withheld from his questioner. This was, that though every male Dorrien should under it meet with a bloodless death--presumably by water--the power of the "Ban" would at last be broken--broken by some terrible and tragic eventuality, obscurely and ambiguously hinted at. "By Jove, Doctor, but you do know how to tell a ghost story," laughed Roland, when the other had done. "Why, you spun that yarn as if you believed every word of it yourself." "Well? That's the right way to tell any story, isn't it?" said the rector carelessly. And then, as it was getting late, Roland got up to leave. Later, as he was sending his bicycle through the pouring rain at a pace which should make short work of the three miles of smooth but hilly road which lay between the Rectory and Cranston--Roy, a draggled mass of woolly mud, galloping behind--the incidents of the strange and gruesome tale seemed to take hold of his mind in the darkness. "Looks as if the prediction was going to be fulfilled again in my own case at the rate this infernal rain's coming down," he said to himself, half jocosely, half grimly. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. AT ARDLEIGH. In due course, Roland availed himself of the invitation to which we heard his father make reference, and transferred himself and his luggage to the ancestral home of the Nevilles.