A fine, stately, stalwart old woman, between sixty and seventy years of age, with gray hair, bright eyes, and an air of masculine vigour about her which could not fail to impress an observer. But what most strongly impressed me was the quality of power which distinguished her--the power of a firm will, which, in a lofty grade of life, would have made her a leader. I introduced myself to her, and informed her that I had obtained her address from Gabriel Carew, and had journeyed to Cornwall for the express purpose of seeing her. She evinced no surprise, and inquired how could she be sure that I came from Mr. Carew.

"I have a letter from him," I said; and I gave it to her.

She read it quietly, and put it into her pocket.

"Is Mr. Carew well?" she asked.

"He is well," I replied.

"I have heard nothing of him since I left him in Rosemullion," she said. "He told me then, it was his intention to quit it for ever, and never again to set foot in it. I said that there was no saying what might happen in the course of life. He lives now in Rosemullion?"

"Yes."

"Then he has not carried out his intention?"

There was no triumph in her voice, indicating that she had been right and he wrong. It was a simple statement of fact simply made.

"We often commit ourselves unguardedly," I observed.

She nodded assent.

"As you have heard nothing of Mr. Carew, you are not aware that he is married?"

She gazed at me thoughtfully, and I fancy I detected a stirring of interest within her at this intelligence.

"Married!" she echoed calmly. "Lately?"

"No. More than twenty years ago. I do not know the exact year."

"Is his wife living?" she asked.

"Yes. She is with Mr. Carew at Rosemullion. Would you like to see her portrait?"

"Yes," she replied.

I had brought Mrs. Carew's portrait with me, and other things which I thought might be likely to help me in my interview with Mrs. Fortress. I handed her the picture.

"A beautiful lady," she said, handing it back to me.

"Better than beautiful," I said. "An angel of goodness and charity, beloved by all who have the privilege of knowing her."

"Is she happy?"

"Very happy. She and her husband are united by the firmest links of love."

"That is good news, and I am glad to hear it. Is Mr. Carew happy?"

Slight as was the pause before I had made up my mind what reply to give, she took advantage of it.

"Then he is not happy?"

"I should like to speak openly to you," I said. "It is not out of mere light curiosity that I have sought you."

"It is," she said, "entirely at your discretion how you speak to me. You are not here at my bidding."

"True," I replied; "and I am entirely at your mercy. You learn from Mr. Carew's letter that I am on terms of confidential friendship with him, and that he places no restraint upon you. There is no person living who is better acquainted than yourself with the particulars of his young life, with its strange surroundings, its isolation, its lack of light. Dominated by such dark influences, it would not have been matter for wonder had Mr. Carew grown into a morose, savage man, believing only in evil, and capable only of it. The contrary is the case. He has faith in goodness; he has won the love of a good woman. His heart is tender, his nature charitable. When, before parting with you, he asked you to enlighten him as to the mystery which reigned in his home, there may have been some valid reason for your refusal--although, even then, as his parents were dead and he was alone in the world, such refusal was capable of a construction more hurtful than the truth might have been."

She interrupted me here by saying, "It could not have been."

"But," I urged, "might not the truth, painful though it were, have contributed to avert evil consequences?"

"To Mr. Carew," she asked, "or to others?"

"To others," I replied.

"I will wait a little," she said composedly, "before I answer that question. You have more to say."

"There can be no valid reason," I continued, "for silence now. Mr. Carew is anxious that you should speak candidly to me. An appeal to your sense of justice would probably weigh with you."

"It is not unlikely," she said. "May I ask if you belong to any profession?"

"I do not follow any at present," I replied; "but for years I practised as a physician."

"In a general way, or as a specialist?"

"Chiefly as a specialist. I have written a successful book upon certain forms of insanity, and I have a copy with me. Perhaps you would like to read it."

"It would interest me," she said. "If I had been a physician I should have devoted myself to that branch of the profession."

I gave her the book, which she placed aside. "It is not, however, solely in that capacity," I said, "that I am here. That certain indefinite impressions, springing from my professional experiences, have prompted me, I do not deny; but my strongest reasons are private ones. Is it your belief that insanity is hereditary and ineradicable?"

"That is my firm belief," she said.

"It is also mine. Mrs. Fortress, are you a married woman?"

"I married a few months after I left Mr. Carew's service. Within two years of my marriage I lost my husband."

"Have you any children?"

"One--a son."

"Who must be now approaching manhood?"

"Yes."

"That is my case. My wife is dead, and I have an only child--a son--who is deeply in love with Gabriel Carew's daughter."

This introduction of Miss Carew threw Mrs. Fortress off her guard; there was a startled flash in her eyes.

"I am sorry to hear," she said, "that Mr. Carew has a daughter. Has he other children?"

"No. Mildred Carew is, like your son and mine, an only child. I purposely brought three things with me, in the hope that they would help me in my purpose. Two you have--my book and the portrait of Gabriel Carew's wife. Here is the portrait of his daughter."

She examined it with the greatest interest, and remarked that she saw no resemblance in it to the father.

"That has struck me," I observed; "neither does she resemble her mother in any marked manner. But that sometimes happens, though it is not the rule."

"Is there an engagement between your son and Miss Carew?"

"They are courting each other, with a view to marriage."

"With your consent?"

"Yes, but it was given before I became intimate with Mr. Carew."

"And since then you have repented?"

"I have been greatly disturbed."

"Rather," she said slowly, "than my son should marry a daughter of Mr. Carew's, I would see him in his grave."

This declaration profoundly agitated me, so far did it go to confirm me in my suspicions. "I asked you a question a few moments since," I said, "and you said you would wait a little before you answered it. Will you answer it now?"

"Your question was, 'Had a painful truth been revealed to Mr. Carew when he was a single gentleman, whether it might have averted evil consequences to others.'"

"You have stated it correctly."

"It might have done," she said. "But it appeared to me that Mr. Carew was the last man in the world to attract a woman's heart. I often said to myself, 'He will never marry.'"

"You were mistaken."

"I was; and I say again I am sorry." She took from her pocket the letter I had given her from Mr. Carew, and read it carefully and slowly, in a new light it seemed to me. Even when she had finished the perusal she did not immediately speak, but sat in silent thought a while.

"I am not a tender-hearted woman," she said, "and not easy to move when I pledge myself. Mr. Carew's father behaved well to me, and fulfilled his promise of providing for me if it was in his power to do so after the death of his wife. I, on my part, kept the two promises I made him when I entered his service. The first was not to leave his service during the lifetime of his wife; the second not to divulge, without powerful cause, the secret of the unhappy inheritance he feared his wife had transmitted to their son. When I bade farewell to Mr. Gabriel Carew in Rosemullion, I saw no such cause for divulging the secret, and I declined to satisfy my young master. It may be different now, and I may be tempted to satisfy you. "

"Out of your sense of justice?" I observed.

"Not entirely. Mr. Carew's letter contains the offer of a reward."

I met her instantly and with eagerness. "I am prepared to pay it."

"It happens that I am in need of a sum of money. An opportunity is open to my son which will be to his advantage, but I am not rich enough to purchase it."

"How much is needed?" I asked.

She named a sum which was modest in comparison with the limit which Gabriel Carew had given me, and I at once consented to pay it to her for her information. I had money with me, and I counted out the amount she required, and handed it to her. After ascertaining that it was correct, she commenced.

"When I accepted the situation Mr. Carew offered me, I did it with my eyes open. I was at that time employed in a lunatic asylum, and was dissatisfied with my rate of pay. Mr. Carew offered me higher terms. His wife was a dangerous woman, and needed constant watching. Properly speaking, she should have been placed in an asylum, but the thought of so doing was hateful to her husband, who desired to keep his domestic affliction from public knowledge. He would have regarded such a disclosure as an indelible disgrace. There are similar secrets in many families. At the time he married her, he had no suspicion that her blood was tainted, and it was only three months before the birth of Gabriel Carew that he made the discovery. I do not profess to be thoroughly familiar with all the particulars; I am not a prying woman, and was contented with what he told me. When he made the dreadful discovery he and his wife were abroad, and the occasion of it, so far as I could gather, ran in this fashion. Mr. Carew was occupying a house in Switzerland--he was rich at the time--and was entertaining guests. Among them was a false friend who was managing his affairs in England, where Mr. Carew lived for the greater part of every year. Ultimately this friend robbed him of his fortune, which Mr. Carew never recovered, coming, however, into another later on, which enabled him to purchase the estate of Rosemullion. One evening there was a large party in Mr. Carew's house, in which his friend was stopping. Mrs. Carew was passionately fond of music, and there was a Tyrolean air for which she had an infatuation. She sang and played it again and again, and became much excited. It is not out of place to say that she was a very beautiful woman. The evening passed on, and the guests had departed. All but one--her husband's false friend, who was stopping in the house. Either his duties as a polite host or some other business called her husband away, and Mrs. Carew and this friend were left alone. He asked her to play and sing again, and she did so for him; and then he made love to her. She repulsed him indignantly, but he was not to be easily daunted, and a climax arrived when he grossly insulted her. This roused her to fury, and she caught an ornamental dagger---but a weapon capable of mischief--from the table, and would have plunged it into his heart had he not caught her wrist and disarmed her. He flung the dagger away, and then coolly told her that her husband had implicit confidence in him, and that he would invent a story that would ruin her. He told her, too, that he had her husband in his power, that she and he were at his mercy, and that he could beggar them at any moment. There occurred then a singular change in her; her excitement left her, and she became as cool as he. Deceived by this, he renewed his suit, but she held him back, and she said one word to him: 'Wait!' To wait meant to hope, and he said he would be content if she would play and sing to him again. She did so--the same Tyrolean air she had sang so many times on this evening. Her husband came in, and the scene ended. In describing it I am drawing from what Mr. Carew told me afterwards in England. But the incident was not to end there. Mr. Carew and his wife retired, and he, awakening in the middle of the night, missed her from his side. He started up, and saw that her clothes were gone. At the moment of the discovery he heard a cry, and he ran from the room. He saw his wife approaching him; she was fully dressed, and she held in her hand the ornamental dagger, which was stained with blood. There was a smile on her lips, but although he stood straight in front of her, with a candle in his hand, she did not appear to see him. She passed by without a word or look of recognition. He followed her to their bedroom, and there she laid the dagger aside, undressed, and went to bed. She had been all the time fast asleep. When she was abed he looked at the blood-stains on the dagger; there was no wound upon her; from whom came the blood? From whence the cry? The direction from which his wife had come was that of the room occupied by his friend. He went there, and found his guest just reviving from a state of insensibility caused by a stab in his breast while he was asleep. Mr. Carew could form but one conclusion, and his sole aim now was that the matter should be kept quiet. In this he succeeded, having invented a story which his friend professed to believe, and into which Mrs. Carew's name was not introduced. It suited Mr. Carew's friend not to dispute the invented story; his wound was not very serious, and he subsequently repaid the injury by beggaring the man who had reposed entire confidence in him, and whose wife he had attempted to lead to her ruin. Mr. Carew could not immediately question his wife, for the next morning she was dangerously ill. The ordinary doctors who were called in did not appear to understand the case, and eventually Mr. Carew consulted a foreign specialist of renown, who informed him that there was insanity in his wife's blood, and that it would most likely assume a phase in which there would be danger to those about her. This alarmed Mr. Carew, not for his own sake, but for his wife's. There was a law in that part of the country, which, put in force, would have removed Mrs. Carew from his care, and he made haste for England, where he would feel safe. Thus far in his wife's illness no dangerous symptoms were visible, and he flattered himself into the belief that the foreign doctor was wrong in the opinion he had given. The most marked characteristic of the disease manifested itself in a harmless fashion, being simply a sentimental passion for the Tyrolean air Mrs. Carew had sung so many times on the night when the hidden seed of insanity began to grow. Under these conditions Gabriel Carew was born. She insisted upon nursing the child, which, had I been in their service at the time, I should not have allowed. When Gabriel was two years of age, the dangerous symptoms of which the foreign doctor had warned Mr. Carew began to manifest themselves, and I was engaged as nurse. Mr. Carew had lost his fortune then, but he was not entirely without means, the largest portion of which was spent upon his wife. He paid me liberally, his one desire in life being to keep the skeleton of his home concealed, not only from the world, but from the knowledge of his son. He thought that, growing up in ignorance of his mother's condition, Gabriel might escape the contagion. I thought differently, but we had no discussions on the subject. He had engaged me to perform a certain duty, and I performed it--there it ended. I had nothing to do with consequences. After Mr. Carew took possession of Rosemullion his wife became worse; there were weeks together when no person but I could approach her with safety. I had perfect control over her. She was obedient, through fear, to my lightest word. It was certainly merciful that the sad secret, having been so long concealed from Gabriel, should remain so. If mischief were done, it was not now to be averted. This is the explanation of Gabriel Carew's lonely boyhood life, and it will possibly help to explain any strange peculiarities you may have observed in him. I do not consider I have violated the second promise I gave to his father--that I would not divulge without powerful cause the secret of Gabriel Carew's unhappy inheritance. There seems to me here to be cause sufficient for secrecy not to be any longer observed. My tongue being now unsealed, I am ready to reply to any questions you may ask."