“Why, miss, to put you on your guard; afraid you might get married to a man that, maybe, has sould himself to the devil.  It’s well known by his father’s sarvints that he’s out two or three nights in the week, and nobody can tell where he goes.”

“Are the servants your authority for that?”

“Indeed they are; Barney Casey knows a great deal about him.  Now, Miss Alice, you’re on your guard; have nothing to do wid him as a sweetheart; but above all things don’t fall out wid him, bekaise, if you did, as sure as I stand here he’d wither you off o’ the earth.  And above all things again watch his eyes; I mane the black one, but don’t seem to do so; and now good-by, miss; I’ve done my duty to you.”

“But about his brother, Caterine?  He has not the Evil Eye, I hope?”

“Ah, miss, I could tell you something about him, too.  They’re a bad graft, these Lindsays; there’s Mr. Charles, and it’s whispered he’s goin’ to make a fool of himself and disgrace his family.”

“How is that, Caterine?”

“I don’t know rightly; I didn’t hear the particulars; but I’ll be on the watch, and when I can I’ll let you know it.”

“Take no such trouble, Caterine,” said Alice; “I assure you I feel no personal interest whatsoever in any of the family except Miss Lindsay.  Leave me, Caterine, leave me; I must finish my book; but I thank you for your good wishes.  Go up, and say I desired them to give you your dinner.”

Alice soon felt herself obliged to follow; and it was, indeed, with some difficulty she was able to reach the house.  Her heart got deadly sick; an extraordinary weakness came over her; she became alarmed, frightened, distressed; her knees tottered under her, and she felt on reaching the hall-door as if she were about to faint.  Her imagination became disturbed; a heavy, depressing gloom descended upon her, and darkened her flexible and unresisting spirit, as if it were the forebodings of some terrible calamity.

The diabolical wretch who had just left her took care to perform her base and heartless task with double effect.  It was not merely the information she had communicated concerning Woodward that affected her so deeply, although she felt, as it were, in the Inmost recesses of her soul, that it was true, but that which went at the moment with greater agony to her heart was the allusion to Charles Lindsay, and the corroboration it afforded to the truth of the charge which Woodward had brought, with so much apparent reluctance, against him—­the charge of having neglected and abandoned her for another, and that other a person of low birth, who, by relinquishing her virtue, had contrived to gain such an artful and selfish ascendancy over him.  How could she doubt it?  Here was a woman ignorant of the communication Woodward had made to her,—­ignorant of the vows that had passed between them,—­who had heard of his falsehood and profligacy, and who never would have alluded to them had she not been questioned.