I noted down one or two particulars out of Bridget's narrative that I
thought might be of use to me: for I was stimulated to further
search in a strange and extraordinary manner. It seemed as if it
were impressed upon me, that I must take up the quest where Bridget
had laid it down; and this for no reason that had previously
influenced me (such as my uncle's anxiety on the subject, my own
reputation as a lawyer, and so on), but from some strange power which
had taken possession of my will only that very morning, and which
forced it in the direction it chose.

"I will go," said I. "I will spare nothing in the search. Trust to
me. I will learn all that can be learnt. You shall know all that
money, or pains, or wit can discover. It is true she may be long
dead: but she may have left a child."

"A child!" she cried, as if for the first time this idea had struck
her mind. "Hear him, Blessed Virgin! he says she may have left a
child. And you have never told me, though I have prayed so for a
sign, waking or sleeping!"

"Nay," said I, "I know nothing but what you tell me. You say you
heard of her marriage."

But she caught nothing of what I said. She was praying to the Virgin
in a kind of ecstasy, which seemed to render her unconscious of my
very presence.

From Coldholme I went to Sir Philip Tempest's. The wife of the
foreign officer had been a cousin of his father's, and from him I
thought I might gain some particulars as to the existence of the