So much I swore, and felt the better for it, yet not without some vision of the perils and the pitfalls which must certainly beset me ere my vow could be fulfilled. And first among these stumbling-blocks there came the thought that none could help me. The truth about my father’s death was one with which I could not trust a living soul; the threatening danger which had hovered over him, and killed him, now just as surely hovered over me; the secret which he had confided to my keeping scarce a day before was still a secret, though now known to three instead of four. Henceforth, in fact, ’twould be a deadly, silent warfare betwixt one and two, and well I knew that God’s earth did not hold a blacker pair of villains than the chaplain and his creature Tubal Ammon. But that did not dismay me; nay, rather was I heartened by the thought that now, at least, I had a real work (however desperate) in life. For the rest of it, come rack, come rope, I would not flinch or turn aside. My course was clearly marked, and I was minded to run it with a will. My father’s blood flowed in my veins, and though a cruel fate had snatched him from my side, he still was mine, and this that I was bent upon seemed but a poor plain duty due to one who had done everything for me. At any rate, ’twas all I could do now for him, and I would gladly give my life for its accomplishment. It was such feelings and such fierce resolves as these which kept me up and made me adamant (I know it now--for afterwards, long afterwards, the crash came), and, looking back through many years, I see no reason to regret it; for it was this alone which made it possible for me to go about my many pressing duties firm-jawed, silent, and clear-headed. And this, I knew, was as my father would have had it, for he had ever little tolerance or sympathy for those who wailed and whimpered in the face of sorrow. I will not dwell upon the many happenings of that dolorous day, for, indeed, they have no business in these pages, and so may be told swiftly in fewest words. First, then, summoned hastily, came the family physician, an old grey-headed, owl-eyed man, who, as I always felt, knew far more about me than he ought to. He asked divers questions, got, I fear, short answers; then shook his head, and murmured: "Ah! ’tis as I feared; ’tis as I always said; the heart hath failed." He said this with a solemn sadness, but yet, as it seemed to me, with some small pride in that his prophecy had been fulfilled. Next, eagerly (for ill news flies apace, and many messengers had been dispatched) came kith and kin, flocking like crows into the old ancestral tree, and, for the most part, trying hard (but vainly) to hide an eager curiosity by means of sighs and tears. In truth, their plaintive caws were little to my liking; and verily they must have thought me something of a hardened monster as I moved about among them, dry-eyed, immovable, and, as it seemed, bent only on cold business.