for was it not as good a place as any other to
such as they? and did not all our faint hopes
rest on Bridget—never seen or heard of now,
but still we trusted to come back, or give
some token?) So, as I say, one after another,
the little children came about my Lucy, won
by her soft tones, and her gentle smiles, and
kind actions. Alas! one after another they
fell away, and shrunk from her path with
blanching terror; and we too surely guessed
the reason why. It was the last drop. I
could bear it no longer. I resolved no more
to linger around the spot, but to go back to my
uncle, and among the learned divines of the
city of London seek for some power whereby
to annul the curse.

My uncle, meanwhile, had obtained all the
requisite testimonials relating to Lucy's
descent and birth, from the Irish lawyers, and
from Mr. Gisborne. The latter gentleman
had written from abroad (he was again serving
in the Austrian army), a letter
alternately passionately self-reproachful, and
stoically repellent. 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 sate 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 door, and, without speaking,
showed in a very gentlemanly and
prepossessing man, who had something remarkable
about his dress, betraying his profession to
be that of the Roman Catholic priesthood.
He glanced at my uncle first, then at me. It
was to me he bowed.

"I did not give my name," said he,
"because you would hardly have recognised it;
unless, sir, when in the north, you heard
of Father Bernard, the chaplain at Stoney
Hurst?"

I remembered afterwards that I had heard
of him, but at the time I had utterly forgotten
it; so I professed myself a complete stranger
to him; while my ever hospitable uncle,
although hating a Papist as much as it was in
his nature to hate anything, placed a chair for
the visitor, and bade Anthony bring glasses
and a fresh jug of claret.

Father Bernard received this courtesy with
the graceful ease and pleasant acknowledgment
which belongs to the man of the world.
Then he turned to scan me with his keen
glance. After some slight conversation,
entered into on his part, I am certain, with an
intention of discovering on what terms of
confidence I stood with my uncle, he paused,
and said gravely:

"I am sent here with a message to you,
sir, from a woman to whom you have shown
kindness, and who is one of my penitents, in
Antwerp—one Bridget Fitzgerald."

"Bridget Fitzgerald! " exclaimed I. " In
Antwerp? Tell me, sir, all that you can
about her."

''There is much to be said," he replied.
"But may I inquire if this 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 cognisance 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, of
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