The removal of Alice sank heavily upon the heart of Harry Woodward; it seemed to him as if she had gone out of his grasp, and from under the influence of his eye, for, by whatever means he might accomplish it, he was resolved to keep the deadly power of that eye upon her.  He had calculated upon the voice and prophetic wail of the Banshee as being fatal in her then state of health; or was it this ominous and supernatural foreboding of her dissolution that caused them to fly from the place?  He reasoned, as the reader may perceive, upon the principle of the Banshee being, according to the superstitious notions entertained of her, a real supernatural visitant, and not the unscrupulous and diabolical imitation of her by Catherine Collins.  Still he thought it barely possible that the change of air and the waters of the celebrated spring might recover her, notwithstanding all his inhuman anticipations.  His brother, also, according to the surgeon’s last report, afforded hopes of convalescence.  A kind of terror came over him that his plans might fail, because he felt almost certain that if Alice and his brother both recovered, Mr. Lindsay might, or rather would, mount his old hobby, and insist on having them married, in the teeth of all opposition on the part of either himself or his mother.  This was a gloomy prospect for him, and one which he could not contemplate without falling back upon still darker schemes.

After the night on which Barney Casey had seen him and the Black Spectre together we need scarcely say that he watched Barney closely, nor that Barney watched him with as keen a vigilance.  Whatever Woodward may have actually felt upon the subject of the apparition, Barney was certainly undecided as to its reality; or if there existed any bias at all, it was in favor of that reality.  Why did Woodward’s arm tremble, and why did the man, who was supposed ignorant of fear, exhibit so much terror and agitation on the occasion?  Still, on the other hand, there appeared to be a conversation, as it were, between them, and a familiarity of manner considerably at variance with Woodward’s version of the circumstances.  Be this as it might, he felt it to be a subject on which he could, by no process of reasoning, come to anything like a definite conclusion.

Woodward now determined to consult his mother as to the plan of their future operations.  The absence of Alice, and the possible chance of her recovery, rendered it necessary that some new series of projects should be adopted; but although several had occurred to him, he had not yet come to a definite resolution respecting the selection he would make.  With this view he and his conscientious mother closeted themselves in her room, and discussed the state of affairs in the following dialogue: 

“Mother,” said he, “this escape of Miss Curds-and-whey is an untoward business.  What, after all, if she should recover?”

“Recover!” exclaimed the lady; “why, did you not assure me that such an event was impossible—­that you were killing her, and that she must die?”