Page:The traitor; a story of the fall of the invisible empire (IA traitorstoryoffa00dixo).pdf/31

 locked, opened through a mass of tangled ivy and honeysuckle climbing in all directions over the cedars and holly which completely hid its existence.

Popular tradition said that Robert Graham had loved his frail Huguenot bride with passionate idolatry, and anticipating her early death, had constructed this vault, a very unusual thing in this section of the South. It was whispered, too, that he had dug a secret passage-way from the house to this tomb, that he might spend his evenings near her body without the prying eyes of the world to watch his anguish. Whether this secret way was a myth or reality only the Grahams knew. Not one of the family had ever been known to speak of the rumour, either to affirm or deny it.

A year after his wife's death Robert Graham was found insane, wandering among the trees at the entrance of the vault. This branch of the family had always been noted for it's men of genius and it's touch of hereditary insanity.

On the day of his mother's burial John Graham had found his own father sitting in the door of this tomb hopelessly insane.

But he had not accepted the theory of hereditary insanity in the case of his father. The Major was a man of quiet courteous manners, deliberate in his habits, a trained soldier, a distinguished