The same evening he took Alice with him for a ramble round the castle wall, while they talked of grave matters, and he as usual allowed her a dim and doubtful view of some of those cloud-built castles in which he habitually dwelt, and among which his jaded hopes revived.

They were walking upon a pleasant short sward of darkest green, on one side overhung by the gray castle walls, and on the other by the forest trees that here and there closely approached it, when precisely as they turned the angle of the Bell Tower, they were encountered by a person walking directly towards them.  The sight of a stranger, with the exception of the one visitor introduced by her father, was in this place so absolutely unprecedented, that Alice was amazed and affrighted to such a degree that for a moment she stood stock-still.

But there was more in this apparition to excite unpleasant emotions, than the mere circumstance of its unexpectedness.  The figure was very strange, being that of a tall, lean, ungainly man, dressed in a dingy suit, somewhat of a Spanish fashion, with a brown laced cloak, and faded red stockings.  He had long lank legs, long arms, hands, and fingers, and a very long sickly face, with a drooping nose, and a sly, sarcastic leer, and a great purplish stain over-spreading more than half of one cheek.

As he strode past, he touched his cap with his thin, discoloured fingers, and an ugly side glance, and disappeared round the corner.  The eyes of father and daughter followed him in silence.

Ultor De Lacy seemed first absolutely terror-stricken, and then suddenly inflamed with ungovernable fury.  He dropped his cane on the ground, drew his rapier, and, without wasting a thought on his daughter, pursued.

He just had a glimpse of the retreating figure as it disappeared round the far angle.  The plume, and the lank hair, the point of the rapier-scabbard, the flutter of the skirt of the cloak, and one red stocking and heel; and this was the last he saw of him.

When Alice reached his side, his drawn sword still in his hand, he was in a state of abject agitation.

“Thank Heaven, he’s gone!” she exclaimed.

“He’s gone,” echoed Ultor, with a strange glare.

“And you are safe,” she added, clasping his hand.

He sighed a great sigh.

“And you don’t think he’s coming back?”

“He!—­who?”

“The stranger who passed us but now.  Do you know him, father?”

“Yes—­and—­no, child—­I know him not—­and yet I know him too well.  Would to heaven we could leave this accursed haunt tonight.  Cursed be the stupid malice that first provoked this horrible feud, which no sacrifice and misery can appease, and no exorcism can quell or even suspend.  The wretch has come from afar with a sure instinct to devour my last hope—­to dog us into our last retreat—­and to blast with his triumph the very dust and ruins of our house.  What ails that stupid priest that he has given over his visits?  Are my children to be left without mass or confession—­the sacraments which guard as well as save—­because he once loses his way in a mist, or mistakes a streak of foam in the brook for a dead man’s face?  D—­n him!”