gentleman--if your uncle is acquainted with the particulars of which
you and I stand informed?"

"All that I know, he knows," said I, eagerly laying my hand on my
uncle's arm, as he made a motion as if to quit the room.

"Then I have to speak before two gentlemen who, however they may
differ from me in faith, are yet fully impressed with the fact that
there are evil powers going about continually to take cognizance of
our evil thoughts: and, if their Master gives them power, to bring
them into overt action. Such is my theory of the nature of that sin,
which I dare not disbelieve--as some sceptics would have us do--the
sin of witchcraft. Of this deadly sin, you and I are aware, Bridget
Fitzgerald has been guilty. Since you saw her last, many prayers
have been offered in our churches, many masses sung, many penances
undergone, in order that, if God and the holy saints so willed it,
her sin might be blotted out. But it has not been so willed."

"Explain to me," said I, "who you are, and how you come connected
with Bridget. Why is she at Antwerp? I pray you, sir, tell me more.
If I am impatient, excuse me; I am ill and feverish, and in
consequence bewildered."

There was something to me inexpressibly soothing in the tone of voice
with which he began to narrate, as it were from the beginning, his
acquaintance with Bridget.

"I had known Mr. and Mrs. Starkey during their residence abroad, and
so it fell out naturally that, when I came as chaplain to the
Sherburnes at Stoney Hurst, our acquaintance was renewed; and thus I