be called) that those chimes would surely be accursed; that whenever
their sound should be heard, so long as they were suffered to remain in
the tower, it should be the signal of woe to the Monk family.

Mrs. Carradyne utterly denied this; she had not been on the terrace at
all, she said. Upon which the onus was shifted to Michael: who, it was
suspected, had stolen out to listen to the end of the quarrel, and had
heard the ominous words. Michael, in his turn, also denied it; but he
was not believed. Anyway, the covert whisper had gone abroad and would
not be laid.


III.

Captain Monk speedily filled up the vacant living, appointing to it the
Reverend Thomas Dancox, an occasional visitor at Leet Hall, who was
looking out for one.

The new Vicar turned out to be a man after the Captain's heart, a
rollicking, jovial, fox-hunting young parson, as many a parson was in
those days--and took small blame to himself for it. He was only a year
or two past thirty, good-looking, of taking manners and
hail-fellow-well-met with the parish in general, who liked him and
called him to his face Tom Dancox.

All this pleased Captain Monk. But very soon something was to arrive
that did not please him--a suspicion that the young parson and his
daughter Katherine were on rather too good terms with one another.

One day in November he stalked into the drawing-room, where Katherine