My wife’s alarm subsided, and although she still manifestly felt some sort of misgiving about our visitor, she yet listened to his conversation, and, spite of herself, soon began to enjoy it.  He stayed for nearly half an hour.  But although he glanced at a great variety of topics, he did not approach the subject of religion.  As soon as he was gone, my wife delivered judgment upon him in form.  She admitted he was agreeable; but then he was such an unnatural, awful-looking object:  there was, besides, something indescribably frightful, she thought, in his manner—­the very tone of his voice was strange and hateful; and, on the whole, she felt unutterably relieved at his departure.

A few days after, on my return, I found my poor little wife agitated and dispirited.  Mr. Smith had paid her a visit, and brought with him a book, which he stated he had been reading, and which contained some references to the Bible which he begged of her to explain in that profounder and less obvious sense in which they had been cited.  This she had endeavoured to do; and affecting to be much gratified by her satisfactory exposition, he had requested her to reconcile some discrepancies which he said had often troubled him when reading the Scriptures.  Some of them were quite new to my good little wife; they startled and even horrified her.  He pursued this theme, still pretending only to seek for information to quiet his own doubts, while in reality he was sowing in her mind the seeds of the first perturbations that had ever troubled the sources of her peace.  He had been with her, she thought, no more than a quarter of an hour; but he had contrived to leave her abundant topics on which to ruminate for days.  I found her shocked and horrified at the doubts which this potent Magus had summoned from the pit—­doubts which she knew not how to combat, and from the torment of which she could not escape.

“He has made me very miserable with his deceitful questions.  I never thought of them before; and, merciful Heaven!  I cannot answer them!  What am I to do?  My serenity is gone; I shall never be happy again.”

In truth, she was so very miserable, and, as it seemed to me, so disproportionately excited, that, inconsistent in me as the task would have been, I would gladly have explained away her difficulties, and restored to her mind its wonted confidence and serenity, had I possessed sufficient knowledge for the purpose.  I really pitied her, and heartily wished Mr. Smith, for the nonce, at the devil.

I observed after this that my wife’s spirits appeared permanently affected.  There was a constantly-recurring anxiety, and I thought something was lying still more heavily at her heart than the uncertainties inspired by our lodger.

One evening, as we two were sitting together, after a long silence, she suddenly laid her hand upon my arm, and said—­

“Oh, Richard, my darling! would to God you could pray for me!”