’I don’t understand metaphysics, my dear, nor witchcraft.  I sometimes believe in the supernatural, and sometimes I don’t.  Silas Ruthyn is himself alone, and I can’t define him, because I don’t understand him.  Perhaps other souls than human are sometimes born into the world, and clothed in flesh.  It is not only about that dreadful occurrence, but nearly always throughout his life; early and late he has puzzled me.  I have tried in vain to understand him.  But at one time of his life I am sure he was awfully wicked—­eccentric indeed in his wickedness—­gay, frivolous, secret, and dangerous.  At one time I think he could have made poor Austin do almost anything; but his influence vanished with his marriage, never to return again.  No; I don’t understand him.  He always bewildered me, like a shifting face, sometimes smiling, but always sinister, in an unpleasant dream.’

CHAPTER XXVIII

I AM PERSUADED

So now at last I had heard the story of Uncle Silas’s mysterious disgrace.  We sat silent for a while, and I, gazing into vacancy, sent him in a chariot of triumph, chapletted, ringed, and robed through the city of imagination, crying after him, ‘Innocent! innocent! martyr and crowned!’ All the virtues and honesties, reason and conscience, in myriad shapes—­tier above tier of human faces—­from the crowded pavement, crowded windows, crowded roofs, joined in the jubilant acclamation, and trumpeters trumpeted, and drums rolled, and great organs and choirs through open cathedral gates, rolled anthems of praise and thanksgiving, and the bells rang out, and cannons sounded, and the air trembled with the roaring harmony; and Silas Ruthyn, the full-length portrait, stood in the burnished chariot, with a proud, sad, clouded face, that rejoiced not with the rejoicers, and behind him the slave, thin as a ghost, white-faced, and sneering something in his ear:  while I and all the city went on crying ‘Innocent! innocent! martyr and crowned!’ And now the reverie was ended; and there were only Lady Knollys’ stern, thoughtful face, with the pale light of sarcasm on it, and the storm outside thundering and lamenting desolately.

It was very good of Cousin Monica to stay with me so long.  It must have been unspeakably tiresome.  And now she began to talk of business at home, and plainly to prepare for immediate flight, and my heart sank.

I know that I could not then have defined my feelings and agitations.  I am not sure that I even now could.  Any misgiving about Uncle Silas was, in my mind, a questioning the foundations of my faith, and in itself an impiety.  And yet I am not sure that some such misgiving, faint, perhaps, and intermittent, may not have been at the bottom of my tribulation.