white hair fell in thin straggling locks over the collar of his coat. He
had an old-fashioned, mummyfied aspect, and Mary thought he must be
very, very old.

Very, very old! In a flash there came back upon her the memory of John
Hammond's curiosity about a hoary and withered old man whom he had met
on the Fell in the early morning. She remembered how she had taken him
to see old Sam Barlow, and how he had protested that Sam in no wise
resembled the strange-looking old man of the Fell. And now here, close
to the Fell, was a face and figure which in every detail resembled that
ancient stranger whom Hammond had described so graphically.

It was very strange. Could this person be the same her lover had seen
two months ago? And, if so, had he been living at Fellside all the time;
or was he only an occasional visitor of Steadman's?

While she stood for a few moments meditating thus, the old man raised
his head and looked up at her, with eyes that burned like red-hot coals
under his shaggy white brows. The look scared her. There was something
awful in it, like the gaze of an evil spirit, a soul in torment, and she
began to move away, with side-long steps, her eyes riveted on that
uncanny countenance.

'Don't go,' said the man, with an authoritative air, rattling his bony
fingers upon the bench. 'Sit down here by my side, and talk to me. Don't
be frightened, child. You wouldn't, if you knew what they say of me
indoors.' He made a motion of his head towards the windows of the old
wing--'"Harmless," they say, "quite harmless. Let him alone, he's
harmless." A tiger with his claws cut and his teeth drawn--an old,
grey-bearded tiger, ghastly and grim, but harmless--a cobra with the