asked.

Dominey shook his head.

"You asked a perfectly natural question, Prince," he replied. "There is
no reason why you should not know the truth. Near that wood occurred the
tragedy which drove me from England for so many years."

"I am deeply grieved," the Prince began--

"It is false sentiment to avoid allusions to it," Dominey interrupted.
"I was attacked there one night by a man who had some cause for offence
against me. We fought, and I reached home in a somewhat alarming state.
My condition terrified my wife so much that she has been an invalid
ever since. But here is the point which has given birth to all these
superstitions, and which made me for many years a suspected person. The
man with whom I fought has never been seen since."

Terniloff was at once too fascinated by the story and puzzled by his
host's manner of telling it to maintain his apologetic attitude.

"Never seen since!" he repeated.

"My own memory as to the end of our fight is uncertain," Dominey
continued. "My impression is that I left my assailant unconscious upon
the ground."

"Then it is his ghost, I imagine, who haunts the Black Wood?"

Dominey shook himself as one who would get rid of an unwholesome
thought.

"The wood itself, Prince," he explained, as they walked along, "is a
noisome place. There are quagmires even in the middle of it, where a man
may sink in and be never heard of again. Every sort of vermin abounds
there, every unclean insect and bird are to be found in the thickets. I
suppose the character of the place has encouraged the local superstition
in which every one of those men firmly believes."

"They absolutely believe the place to be haunted, then?"

"The superstition goes further," Dominey continued. "Our locals say that
somewhere in the heart of the wood, where I believe that no human being
for many years has dared to penetrate, there is living in the spiritual
sense some sort of a demon who comes out only at night and howls
underneath my windows."

"Has any one ever seen it?"

"One or two of the villagers; to the best of my belief, no one else,"
Dominey replied.

Terniloff seemed on the point of asking more questions, but the Duke
touched him on the arm and drew him to one side, as though to call his
attention to the sea fogs which were rolling up from the marshes.

"Prince," he whispered, "the details of that story are inextricably
mixed up with the insanity of Lady Dominey. I am sure you understa