from the vault and reached my room
once more.

"Now I know that this great curse is true; that my father's
spirit is there to guard the door and close it, for I saw it with
my own eyes, and while you read this know that I am there. I
charge you, therefore, not to marry--bring no child into the
world to perpetuate this terrible curse. Let the family die out
if you have the courage. It is much, I know, to ask; but whether
you do or not, come to me there, and if by sign or word I can
communicate with you I will do so, but hold the secret safe. Meet
me there before my body is laid to rest, when body and soul are
still not far from each other. Farewell.

"--Your loving father,
"Henry Clinton."

I read this strange letter over carefully twice, and laid it down. For a
moment I hardly knew what to say. It was certainly the most uncanny
thing I had ever come across.

"What do you think of it?" asked Allen at last.

"Well, of course there are only two possible solutions," I answered.
"One is that your father not only dreamt the beginning of this
story--which, remember, he allows himself--but the whole of it."

"And the other?" asked Allen, seeing that I paused.

"The other," I continued, "I hardly know what to say yet. Of course we
will investigate the whole thing, that is our only chance of arriving
at a solution. It is absurd to let matters rest as they are. We had
better try to-night."

Clinton winced and hesitated.

"Something must be done, of course," he answered; "but the worst of it
is Phyllis and her mother are coming here early to-morrow in time for the
funeral, and I cannot meet her--no, I cannot, poor girl!--while I feel
as I do."

"We will go to the vault to-night," I said.

Clinton rose from his chair and looked at me.

"I don't like this thing at all, Bell," he continued. "I am not by
nature in any sense of the word a superstitious man, but I tell you
frankly nothing would induce me to go alone into that chapel to-night;
if you come with me, that, of course, alters matters. I know the pew my
father refers to well; it is beneath the window of St. Sebastian."

Soon afterwards I went to my room and dressed; and Allen and I dined
_tete-a-tete_ in the great dining-room. The old butler waited on us
with funereal solemnity, and I did all I could to lure Clinton's
thoughts