Entering by the wood-shed door, which was first reached, he went into
the summer kitchen, and passed on into the second kitchen, where a
candle was burning dimly, and where he stopped a moment by the warm
stove. No one heard him, no one knew he was there; but as he stood in
the silence and darkness he heard distinctly his grandfather's voice,
and this was what he heard:
"I must tell you, my son, and you, my minister; but no one else, not
Grey--no, no, not, the boy Grey, who loves me so much. His life must not
be shadowed with disgrace. He must not hate me in my coffin. Oh, Grey!
Grey! May God bless him and give him every needful happiness, and make
him so good and noble that his life will blot out the stain upon our
name."
Here Grey, who stood motionless, heard his father say:
"For pity's sake tell me what you mean; the suspense is terrible."
And then came the awful response, which sounded through the silent room
like the knell to all the boy's future happiness and peace of mind.
"Thirty-one years ago to-night, in the heat of passion I killed a man
in the kitchen yonder, and buried him under this floor, under my bed,
and I have slept on his grave ever since!"
No wonder Grey's face grew white as the face of a corpse, while his
heart throbbed with unutterable pain as he whispered the word his father
had said aloud.
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