As he said this, it struck me that he was trying to make me angry, and as I saw the wickedness and meanness of his heart, I felt a great bitterness rising within me. Then I remembered what I felt at Smyrna--how I had prayed that God would help me to love, and in a second the bitterness was gone, and all harsh feelings were turned to pity. I saw the veil torn aside, and I knew that, much as I had suffered, he had suffered more; that deep as I had been in hell, he had been in a hell yet deeper. I did not remember the deceit, the fraud, the treachery he had practised towards me, I only thought of the possible Wilfred, the Wilfred as he might have been, and as God intended he should be. "And what do you intend to do?" said my mother, for such I shall continue to call her. "Do, mother," I said. "I shall do nothing." "Do! What can he do?" laughed Wilfred. "His hands are tied. I am glad on the whole that he has come, for the place is accursed. It has never given me anything but misery. I have been in a constant fever. And Roger will suffer more, I am glad to say. As for you, mother, serve you right if you never have another day's happiness." "Wilfred, my boy," said mother, "how can you say so?" "Say so," repeated Wilfred, "because you have been my real curse. Who taught me first to envy Roger? You. Who taught me to hate him afterwards? You. Who was ever at my elbow seeking to make me misrepresent his every action? You. Who taught me how to deceive Ruth? You. But for you I should have been content to be the younger son, content to be the vicar of the parish; but bitterness was instilled into my heart as a child, until I hated him as I hate all the world. I wish he had killed me a year ago, for then I would have haunted him until life should be such a ghastly possession that he should seek death. But, never mind. Trewinion's curse is fulfilled in him; he has suffered, and he will have to suffer." "How?" I said, with pain at my heart. "How?" he said, "You have broken every condition of happiness, you have violated every law of our people. It is a law that Trewinion's heir should never be away from the homestead for more than six months at a time, and you have been away eleven years. It is written in the curse, at which you have reason to tremble, that if you stray from God's pure laws you shall be cursed and crushed by a younger brother. The curse of our people ever rests upon the heir who hates, and you hate me." I did not believe in the "curse" at this time; I felt that Wilfred had a purpose in speaking thus, and yet a strange awesome feeling crept around my heart as he spoke. Did Wilfred really believe in this legend of our people? I did not know. Certainly all our family had believed it in the past, and strange things had happened to our race. Was ill-luck ever to follow me? Was a dark pall ever to rest upon my life?