dwells apart, and cannot be defiled or stained by all the devilish
arts in the whole world."

"True! but it is a cruel fate to know that all shrink from her,
sooner or later, as from one possessed--accursed."

"How came it to pass?" I asked.

"Nay, I know not. Old rumours there are, that were bruited through
the household at Skipford."

"Tell me," I demanded.

"They came from servants, who would fain account for every thing.
They say that, many years ago, Mr. Gisborne killed a dog belonging to
an old witch at Coldholme; that she cursed, with a dreadful and
mysterious curse, the creature, whatever it might be, that he should
love best; and that it struck so deeply into his heart that for years
he kept himself aloof from any temptation to love aught. But who
could help loving Lucy?"

"You never heard the witch's name?" I gasped.

"Yes--they called her Bridget: they said he would never go near the
spot again for terror of her. Yet he was a brave man!"

"Listen," said I, taking hold of her arm, the better to arrest her
full attention: "if what I suspect holds true, that man stole
Bridget's only child--the very Mary Fitzgerald who was Lucy's mother;
if so, Bridget cursed him in ignorance of the deeper wrong he had