From the moment of my avowal to Rosa it seemed that the evil spirit of

the dead Lord Clarenceux had assumed an ineffable dominion over me. I

cannot properly describe it; I cannot describe it all. I may only say

that I felt I had suddenly become the subject of a tyrant who would

punish me if I persisted in any course of conduct to which he

objected. I knew what fear was--the most terrible of all fears--the

fear of that which we cannot understand. The inmost and central throne

of my soul was commanded by this implacable ghost, this ghost which

did not speak, but which conveyed its ideas by means of a single

glance, a single sneer.

It was strange that I should be aware at once what was required of me,

and the reasons for these requirements. Till that night I had never

guessed the nature of the thing which for so many weeks had been

warning me; I had not even guessed that I was being warned; I had

taken for a man that which was not a man. Yet now, in an instant of

time, all was clear down to the smallest details. From the primal hour

when a liking for Rosa had arisen in my breast, the ghost of Lord

Clarenceux, always hovering uneasily near to its former love, had

showed itself to me.

The figure opposite the Devonshire Mansion--that was the first

warning. With regard to the second appearance, in the cathedral of

Bruges, I surmised that that only indirectly affected myself.

Primarily it was the celebration of a fiendish triumph over one who

had preceded me in daring to love Rosetta Rosa, but doubtless also it

was meant in a subsidiary degree as a second warning to the youth who

followed in Alresca's footsteps. Then there were the two appearances

during my journey from London to Paris with Rosa's jewels--in the

train and on the steamer. Matters by that time had become more

serious. I was genuinely in love, and the ghost's anger was quickened.

The train was wrecked and the steamer might have been sunk, and I

could not help thinking that the ghost, in some ineffectual way, had

been instrumental in both these disasters. The engine-driver, who said

he was "dazed," and the steersman, who attributed his mistake at the

wheel to the interference of some unknown outsider--were not these

things an indication that my dreadful suspicion was well grounded? And

if so, to what frightful malignity did they not point! Here was a

spirit, which in order to appease the pangs of a supernatural

jealousy, was ready to use its immaterial powers to destroy scores of

people against whom it could not possibly have any grudge. The most

fanatical anarchism is not worse than this.

Those attempts had failed. But now the aspect of affairs was changed.

The ghost of Lord Clarenceux had more power over me now--I felt that

acutely; and I explained it by the fact that I was in the near

neighborhood of Rosa. It was only when she was near that the jealous

hate of this spectre exercised its full efficacy.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024