“I threw it aside at last and went to bed--and to dream. And the end--or the beginning--of it is that I am compelled--I use the word advisedly--compelled, Constance, to investigate the whole affair.” “Oh! but you are not in earnest? Investigate? But it happened seventy years ago! What can be learned after seventy years?” “I don’t know. I must investigate and find out what I can.” Constance looked at him with astonishment. He sat at his desk--but with his chair turned towards her. His face was lined and somewhat haggard: he looked like one who is driven: but he looked resolved. “Leonard, this is idle fancy.” “I cannot help it; I must investigate the case. There is no help for me, Constance--I must. This was the first of the family misfortunes. They have been so heavy and so many that--well, it is weakness to connect them with something unknown.” “I am sorry--I am very sorry--that you have learned the truth--even though it makes me your cousin.” “I am very sorry, too. But Fate has found me--as it found my grandfather and my father and that old, old man. Perhaps my own career is also to be cut short.” “Nonsense, Leonard! You will investigate the case: you will find out nothing: you will throw it aside: you will forget it.” “No; it is not to be forgotten or thrown aside.” “Well, make your inquiry as soon as you can and get it over. Oh, I should have thought you the last person in the world to be moved by fancies of compulsion or any other fancies.” “I should have thought so, too, except for this experience. When I got up, Constance, I resolutely shut the book, and I made up my mind to forget the whole business.” “And you could not, I suppose?” “I could not. I found it impossible to fix my attention, so I pulled out the book again and went all over it from the beginning once more. Constance, it is the most remarkable story I ever read. You shall read it yourself.” “If I do, not even my duty to our ancestor will make me take it so seriously as you are doing.” “To-day I have been down to the place. I have visited the wood where the thing happened: I found again that old man of the churchyard, who paid you an undeserved compliment.” Constance blushed, but not much. “I made him tell me all he remembered: it was not much, but it sounded like the unexpected confirmation of some old document.” “And have you come to any conclusion yet? Have you formed any theory?” “None that will hold water. I don’t know what is going to happen over that business, but I must go on--I must go on.” She laid a hand upon his arm. “If you must go on, let me go with you. It is my murder as well as yours. Lend me the book.” She carried it off to her own rooms, and that night another incubus sat upon another sleeping person and murdered rest. CHAPTER XIII A COMPROMISE