The Incredulity of Father Brown
fangled heredity. But this man who died was not the victim of a magic curse or an inherited madness. He was murdered; and for us that murder is simply an accident; yes, requiescat in pace, but a happy accident. It is a ray of daylight, because it comes from outside."
She suddenly smiled. "Yes, I believe I understand. I suppose you are talking like a lunatic, but I understand. But who murdered him?"
"I do not know," he answered calmly, "but Father Brown knows. And as Father Brown says, murder is at least done by the will, free as that wind from the sea."
"Father Brown is a wonderful person," she said after a pause; "he was the only person who ever brightened my existence in any way at all until———"
"Until what?" asked Payne, and made a movement almost impetuous, leaning towards her and thrusting away the bronze monster so that it seemed to rock on its pedestal.
"Well, until you did," she said and smiled again.
So was the sleeping palace awakened, and it is no part of this story to describe the stages of its awakening, though much of it had come to pass before the dark of that evening had fallen upon the shore. As Harry Payne strode homewards
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