“Troubles and misfortunes? And you have never heard of them! Why, my children, who haven’t nearly so much right as you to know, have learned the history of my people better than that of their own mother or their grandfather’s people. To be sure, with the small folk, like those who live round here, trouble is not the same thing as with us. Mostly they live up to the neck in troubles, and they look for nothing but misfortune, and they don’t mind it very much so long as they get their dinners. And you haven’t even heard of the family misfortunes? I am astonished. Why, there never has been any family like ours for trouble. And you might have been cut off in your prime, or struck off with a stroke, or been run over with a waggon, and never even known that you were specially born to misfortune as the sparks fly upwards.” “Am I born to misfortune? More than other people?” It was in a kind of dream that Leonard spoke. His brain reeled; the room went round and round: he caught the arms of a chair. And for a moment he heard nothing except the voice of Constance, who warned him that Nature makes no one wholly happy: that he had been too fortunate: that something would fall upon him to redress the balance: that family scandals, poor relations, disgraces and shames, were the lot of all mankind, and if he would be human, if he would understand humanity, he must learn, like the rest of the world, by experience and by suffering. Was she, then, a Prophetess? For, behold! a few days only had passed, and these things had fallen upon him. But as yet he did not know the full extent of what had happened and what was going to happen. He recovered. The fit had lasted but a moment; but thought and memory are swifter than time. The old lady was talking on. “To think that you’ve lived all these years and no one ever told you! What did they mean by keeping you in the dark? And I’ve always thought of you as sitting melancholy, waiting for the Stroke whenever it should fall.” “I have been ignorant of any Stroke, possible or actual. Let me tell you that I have no fear of any Stroke. This is superstition.” “No--no!” The old lady shook her head, and laid her hand on his. “Dear boy, you are still under the curse. The Stroke will fall. Perhaps it will be laid in mercy. On me it fell with wrath. That is our distinction. That’s what it is to be a Campaigne. The misfortunes, however, don’t go on for ever. They will leave off after your generation. It will be when I am dead and gone; but I should like, I confess, to see happiness coming back once more to the family.” “Your grandson spoke of a murder and of a suicide among other things.” “Other things, indeed! Why, there was my husband’s bankruptcy. There was your uncle Fred, my nephew, and what he did, and why he was bundled out of the country. I thought your mother would have fallen ill with the shame of it. And there was my poor father, too; and there was the trial. Did they not tell you about the trial?” “What trial?”