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"Ah!" said he, "you're looking at our masterpiece, I see." "Tell me," I asked; "do you know why this word is written here, over the mirror?" "I've heard my wife say, sir, it was the motto of the Cardinnocks that used to own this house. Ralph Cardinnock, father to the last squire, built it. You'll see his initials up there, in the top corners of the frame R. C. one letter in each corner."
It was at this point that I who sat and witnessed the tragedy was assailed by a horror entirely new. Hitherto I had, indeed, seen myself in Squire Philip Cardinnock; but now I began also to possess his soul and feel with his feelings, while at the same time I continued to sit before the glass, a helpless onlooker.
I was trying to piece together these words "Philip Cardinnock Cicely Williams fui," and to fit them into the tune that kept running in my head. My pipe went out. I pulled out my pouch and was filling it afresh when a puff of wind came down the chimney and blew a cloud of blue smoke out into the room. The smoke curled up and spread itself over the face of the mirror confronting me.
Old Parkyn, great-great-grandfather to the one that lives there now, took Tremenhuel on lease from the last Cardinnock Squire Philip Cardinnock, as he was called. Squire Philip came into the property when he was twenty-three: and before he reached twenty-seven, he was forced to let the old place.
Like two serpents their rapiers engaged in the candle-light. The soundless blades crossed and glittered. Then one of them flickered in a narrow circle, and the brother's rapier went spinning from his hand across the room. Young Cardinnock lowered his point at once, and his adversary stepped back a couple of paces.
As he spoke it, I knew this name Cardinnock for that which had been haunting me. I seated myself at table, saying "They lived at Tremenhuel, I suppose. Is the family gone? died out?" "Why yes; and the way of it was a bit curious, too." "You might sit down and tell me about it," I said, "while I begin my dinner."
Here, as in the Blue Room, two souls were struggling for me. It was the soul of Philip Cardinnock that drew me towards the tarn and the soul of Samuel Wraxall that resisted. Only, what was the thing towards which I was being pulled? I must have stood at least a minute on the brink before I descried a black object floating at the far end of the tarn.
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