“You now see,” said he, “that Heaven has found us out.  That visitor is nae ither than Mrs. Janet Dodds returned frae the grave, and sure it is that nane are permitted to leave that place o’ rest except for a purpose.  No, it’s no for naething that Janet Dodds comes back to her auld hame.  What the purpose may be, the Lord only knows; but this seems to me to be clear enough—­that you and I maun pairt.  You see that nae breakfast has been laid for you.  I have taen mine, and nae harm has come o’t; a clear sign that though we are baith great criminals, you are considered to be the warst o’ the twa.  It was you wha put poison into my ear and cast glamour ower my een; it was you wha egged me on, for ’the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her words are smoother than oil; but her feet take hold of hell.’  That I am guilty, I know; and ‘though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished.’  I will dree my doom whatever it may be, and so maun you yours; but there may be a difference, and so far as mortal can yet see, yours will be waur to bear than mine.  But, however a’ that may be, the time is come when you maun leave this house.  ’Cast out the strange woman, and contention shall go out; yea, strife and reproach shall cease;’ but ’go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end, when thy neighbour hath put thee to shame.’  Keep your secret frae a’ save the Lord; and may He hae mercy on your soul!”

With which words, savouring as they did of the objurgations of the black pot to the kettle, Mr. Thomas Dodds left his house, no doubt in the expectation that Mrs. Dodds secunda would move her camp, and betake herself once more to her old place of residence in the Grassmarket.  Where he went that day no man ever knew, further than that he was seen in the afternoon in St. Giles’s Church, where, no doubt, he did his best to make a cheap purchase of immunity to his soul and body, in consideration of a repentance brought on by pure fear, produced by a spectre; and who knows but that that was a final cause of the spectre’s appearance?  We have seen that it was a kindly spirit, preparing porridge and tea for him at the same time that it made his hair stand on end, and big drops of sweat settle upon his brow or roll down therefrom—­a conjunction this of the tawse and the jelly-pot, whereby kind and loving parents try to redeem naughty boys.  Nor let it be said that this kindly dealing with a murderer is contrary to the ways of Heaven; for, amidst a thousand other examples, did not Joshua, after the wall of Jericho lay flat at the blast of a trumpet, save that vile woman Rahab at the same time that he slew the young and the old, nay, the very infants, with the edge of the sword?  All which, though we are not, by token of our sins, able to see the reason thereof, is doubtless consonant to a higher justice—­altogether unlike our goddess, who is represented as blind, merely because she is supposed not to see a bribe when offered to her by a litigant.