Whether up to that moment the Professor had really believed
Malvina's story, or whether lurking at the back of his mind there
had all along been an innate conviction that the thing was absurd,
the Professor himself is now unable to say. To the front of the
Professor lay Oxford--political economy, the higher criticism, the
rise and progress of rationalism. Behind him, fading away into
the dim horizon of humanity, lay an unmapped land where for forty
years he had loved to wander; a spirit-haunted land of buried
mysteries, lost pathways, leading unto hidden gates of knowledge.

And now upon the trembling balance descended Mrs. Muldoon plump.

"How do you know?" demanded the Professor.

"Shure, don't I know the mark?" replied Mrs. Muldoon almost
contemptuously. "Wasn't my own sister's child stolen away the very
day of its birth and in its place--"

The little serving maid tapped at the door.

Mademoiselle was "finished." What was to be done with her?

"Don't ask me," protested Mrs. Muldoon, still in a terrified
whisper. "I couldn't do it. Not if all the saints were to go down
upon their knees and pray to me."

Common-sense argument would not have prevailed with Mrs. Muldoon.
The Professor felt that; added to which he had not any handy. He
directed, through the door, that "Mademoiselle" should be shown into
the dining-room, and listened till Drusilla's footsteps had died