was again serving in the Austrian army), a letter alternately
passionately self-reproachful and stoically repellant. It was
evident that when he thought of Mary--her short life--how he had
wronged her, and of her violent death, he could hardly find words
severe enough for his own conduct; and from this point of view, the
curse that Bridget had laid upon him and his, was regarded by him as
a prophetic doom, to the utterance of which she was moved by a Higher
Power, working for the fulfilment of a deeper vengeance than for the
death of the poor dog. But then, again, when he came to speak of his
daughter, the repugnance which the conduct of the demoniac creature
had produced in his mind, was but ill-disguised under a show of
profound indifference as to Lucy's fate. One almost felt as if he
would have been as content to put her out of existence, as he would
have been to destroy some disgusting reptile that had invaded his
chamber or his couch.

The great Fitzgerald property was Lucy's; and that was all--was
nothing.

My uncle and I sat in the gloom of a London November evening, in our
house in Ormond Street. I was out of health, and felt as if I were
in an inextricable coil of misery. Lucy and I wrote to each other,
but that was little; and we dared not see each other for dread of the
fearful Third, who had more than once taken her place at our
meetings. My uncle had, on the day I speak of, bidden prayers to be
put up on the ensuing Sabbath in many a church and meeting-house in
London, for one grievously tormented by an evil spirit. He had faith
in prayers--I had none; I was fast losing faith in all things. So we
sat, he trying to interest me in the old talk of other days, I
oppressed by one thought--when our old servant, Anthony, opened the