I must start
myself to-morrow morning; and you--"
He stopped; his face grew suddenly pale; he sighed heavily; his
eyes wandered once more into the fixed look at vacancy; and the
rigid, deathly expression fastened again upon all his features.
"I must tell you my secret before I talk of to-morrow," he
proceeded, faintly. "If I hesitated any longer at confessing
everything, I should be unworthy of your past kindness, unworthy
of the help which it is my last hope that you will gladly give me
when you have heard all."
I begged him to wait until he was more composed, until he was
better able to speak; but he did not appear to notice what I
said. Slowly, and struggling as it seemed against himself, he
turned a little away from me, and, bending his head over the
table, supported it on his hand. The packet of letters with which
I had seen him occupied when I came in lay just beneath his eyes.
He looked down on it steadfastly when he next spoke to me.
CHAPTER IV.
"You were born, I believe, in our county," he said; "perhaps,
therefore, you may have heard at some time of a curious old
prophecy about our family, which is still preserved among the
traditions of Wincot Abbey?"
"I have heard of such a prophecy," I answered, "but I never knew
in what terms it was expressed.
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