Angela shivered; the dark afternoon seemed to have grown darker to her.

“So she is back,” she said to herself.  “I felt that she was back.  She makes me feel afraid.”

Going on her way, she came to a spot where the path forked, one track leading to a plank with a hand-rail spanning the stream that fed the lake, and the other to some stepping-stones, by crossing which and following the path on the other side a short cut could be made to the rectory.  The bridge and the stepping-stones were not more than twenty yards apart, but so intent was Angela upon her own thoughts and upon placing her feet accurately on the stones that she did not notice a little man with a red comforter, who was leaning on the hand-rail, engaged apparently in meditation.  The little man, however, noticed her, for he gave a violent start, and apparently was about to call out to her, when he changed his mind.  He was Sir John Bellamy.

“Better let her go perhaps, John,” he said, addressing his own effigy in the water.  “After all, it will be best for you to let things to take their course, and not to burn your own fingers or commit yourself in any way, John.  You will trap them more securely so.  If you were to warn the girl now, you would only expose them; if you wait till he has married her, you will altogether destroy them with the help of that young Heigham.  And perhaps by that time you will have touched those compromising letters, John, and made a few other little arrangements, and then you will be able to enjoy the sweets of revenge meted out with a quart measure, not in beggarly ones or twos.  But you are thinking of the girl—­eh, John?  Ah! you always were a pitiful beggar; but tread down the inclination, decline to gratify it.  If you do, you will spoil your own hand.  The girl must take her chance—­oh! clearly the girl must take her chance.  But all the same, John, you are very sorry for her—­very.  Come, come, you must be off, or her ladyship and the gentle George will be kept waiting,” and away he went at a brisk pace, cheerfully singing a verse of a comic song.  Sir John was a merry little man.

In due course Angela reached the rectory, and found Mr. Fraser seated in his study reading.

“Well, my dear, what brings you here?  What a dreary night!”

“Yes, it is dreadfully damp and lonesome; the people look like ghosts in the mist, and their voices sound hollow.  A proper day for evil things to creep home,” and she laughed drearily.

“What do you mean,” he answered, with a quick glance at her face, which wore an expression of nervous anxiety.

“I mean that Lady Bellamy has come home; is she not an evil thing?”

“Hush, Angela; you should not talk so.  You are excited, dear.  Why should you call her evil?”

“I don’t know; but have you ever noticed her?  Have you never seen her creep, creep, like a tiger on its prey?  Watch her dark face, and see the bad thoughts come and peep out of her eyes as the great black pupils swell and then shrivel, till they are no larger than the head of this black pin, and you will know that she is evil, and does evil work.”