"It is my intention, as an act of justice, before I die, to make my son Gabriel acquainted with the mystery of my married life. It is due to him and to myself that he should not pass his life in ignorance of the sad events and circumstances which shadowed his home. The journal which I have written, and in which he will find a record of facts, will put him in possession of the melancholy circumstances of his parents' lives. Without additional words from me he would understand the explanation I have given, but something more is necessary from me to him.

"When I married his mother I had no knowledge that there was in her blood an inherited disease. Had I suspected it I should not have married her. It would have been a transgression against the laws of God and man. To bring into the world human beings who are not responsible for their actions, and who are driven to crime by the promptings of a demoniac force born within them and growing stronger with their own growth to strong manhood, is to be the creator of a race of monsters. It matters not how fair and beautiful the outside may be; simply to think of the evil forces sleeping within, urging to sin and crime and cruelty, is sufficient to make a just man shudder. Madness assumes many phases, but not one more dreadful than the phase in which it presented itself in my wife's nature. Her conscious, waking life was a life of gentleness and kindness; her unconscious, sleeping life, but for the restraints I placed upon her, would have been a life of crime. The fault was not hers, but it fell to her lot to bear the burden of her curse. I, at least, by rendering her existence a misery to herself and those around her, kept her free from crime. One she committed before my eyes were opened, but its consequences were not fatal. To this hour she does not know that she attempted the life of a human being, and it is possible, because of my treatment of her, that she thinks of me as a monster of cruelty. It is for me to bear this burden, in addition to others which have come to me unaware. I do not bemoan, but my life might have been bright and honoured had I not married my wife. The one consolation I have is that I have endeavoured to perform my duty. My son Gabriel must perform his, though his heart bleed in its performance. Should the worst befall, all that I can do is to implore his forgiveness for having been the cause of his living. There have been times when I have debated with myself whether it would not be the more merciful course to put him out of the world, but I have never had the courage to execute the sentence which my sense of stern justice dictated. There is, however, one chance in life for him, although I most solemnly adjure him never to marry, never to link his life with that of an innocent being. If his heart is moved to love he must pluck the sentiment out by the roots, must fly from it as from a horror which blenches the cheek to contemplate. Our race must die with him; not one must live after him to perpetuate it. I lay this injunction most solemnly upon him; if he violate it he will be an incredible monster--as I should have been had I married his mother knowing what taint was in her blood. For his guidance I may say that I have consulted the most eminent authorities in Europe, and this is their verdict. Let him pay careful heed to it, for in my judgment it is incontrovertible.

"Reference to my journal will show him that the first visible manifestation of his mother's disease was exhibited about five months before he was born. We were then inhabiting a house in Switzerland, and on the night her fatal inheritance took active shape and form we had been entertaining a party of friends--one of whom was a foul villain--and my wife had been singing many times a Tyrolean air of which she was passionately fond. I copy the music of the air here, praying to God that my son may not be familiar with it."

(Here followed a few bars of music, which I had no doubt formed the air to which Mrs. Fortress had referred in her statement, and mention of which will also be found in the record of his life made by Gabriel Carew.)

"After the almost tragic events of that night my wife was continually singing this air; I have heard her hum it in her sleep. When my son was born she suckled the child--an error I deeply deplore. The physicians I consulted are of one opinion. If my son Gabriel inherits in its worst form his mother's disease, the ghost of this air will haunt him from time to time. It may not be so clear to his senses that he could sing it aloud, but he would indubitably recognise it if he heard it by accident. It is for a test that I copy the music; it is for my son to apply it. Should the air be entirely unfamiliar to him, should it fail to recall any sensations through which he has passed, the inheritance transmitted to him by his mother--if it ever assume practical shape--will exhibit itself in a milder and less ruthless form. The physicians aver that at some time or other, if Gabriel live long, some such manifestation will most surely take place, and that if it occur in its worst phase, the key-note to the occurrence may be found in the affections.

"This is as much as I can at present find strength to set down. I shall take an opportunity to confer with my son upon this gloomy matter, but I have a reluctance to approach the subject personally with him during the lifetime of his mother. It will need an almost superhuman courage on my part to speak of such a matter to my own son, but I must nerve my soul to the task. If he reproach me, if he curse me, I must bear it humbly. Once more I implore his forgiveness."