'I felt,' said she, 'that something awful had happened. And it
affects yourself, Henry?'

'It affects myself.'

'And very deeply?'

'Very deeply, Winnie.'

Then, pulling from my pocket the silver casket and the parchment
scroll, I said, 'It has relation to these.'

'_That_ I felt,' said she; 'how could it be otherwise? Oh, the
miscreant! I curse him; I curse him!'

'Winifred,' I said, 'between me and this casket, and the cross
mentioned in this scroll, there is a mysterious link. The cross is an
amulet, an heirloom of dreadful potency for good and ill. It has been
disturbed; it has been stolen from my father's grave, and there is
but one way of setting right that disturbance. To avert unspeakable
calamity from falling upon two entire families (the family of Aylwin
and that of her to whom this amulet was given) a sacrifice is
demanded.'

'Henry, you terrify me to death. What is the sacrifice? Oh God! Oh
God!'

'My father's son must die, Winnie.'

She turned ashen pale, but struggling to be playful, she said, 'I
fear that the family of Aylwin and the family of somebody else must
even take the calamity and bear it; for I don't mean my Henry to die,
let me assure both families of _that_.'

'Ah! but, Winnie, I am under a solemn oath and pledge to bear this
penalty; and we part to-night, That shriek which so appalled you--'

'Well, well, the shriek?' said she, in a frenzy of impatience.

I made no answer, but she answered herself.

'That shriek was a call to you,' she cried, and then burst into a
passion of tears. 'It _cannot_ be,' she said. 'It cannot and shall
not be; God is too good to suffer it,' Then she fixed her eyes upon
me, and sobbed: 'Ah, it is _true_! I feel it is all true! Yes, they
are calling you, and that is why my soul answered the call. Ah, when
I saw you just now lift your head from my breast with a face grey and
wizened as an old man's--when I saw you look at me, I knew that
something dreadful had happened. Oh, I knew, I knew! but I thought it
had happened to _me_. The love and pity in your eyes when you opened
them upon me made me think it was my trouble, and not yours, that
disturbed you. And now I know it is yours, and you are going to die!
They are calling you. Yes, you are going to let the tide drown you!
Oh, my love my love!' and her grief was so acute that I knew not at
first whether in this I had done well after all.

'Winifred,' I said, 'you must bear this. I have always been r