They now urged her to take exercise--against which, indeed, she always had a const.i.tutional repugnance--and not to sit so much in her own room as she did; and in order to comply with their wishes in this respect, she forced herself to walk a couple of hours each day in the lawn, where she generally read a book, for the purpose, if possible, of overcoming her habitual melancholy. It was upon one of these occasions that she saw the fortune-teller, Caterine Collins, approach her, and as her spirits were unusually depressed for the moment, she felt no inclination to enter into any conversation with her. Naturally courteous, however, and reluctant to give offence, she allowed the woman to advance, especially as she could perceive from the earnestness of her manner that she was anxious to speak with her.

"Well, Caterine," said she, "I hope you are not coming to tell my fortune to-day; I am not in spirits to hear much of the future, be it good or bad. Will you not go up to the house? They will give you something to eat."

"Thank you, Miss Alice, I will go up by and by; but in the manetime, what fortune could any one tell you but good fortune? There's nothin'

else before you; and if there is, I'm come to put you on your guard against it, as I will, plaise goodness. I heard what I'm goin' to mention to you on good autority, and, as I know it's true, I think it's but right you should know of it, too." Alice immediately became agitated; but mingled with that agitation was a natural wish--perhaps it might be a pardonable curiosity, under the circ.u.mstances--to hear how what the woman had to disclose could affect herself. Being nervous, restless, and depressed, she was just in the very frame of mind to receive such an impression as might be deeply prejudicial to the ease of her heart--perhaps her happiness, and consequently her health.

"What is it that you think I should know, Caterine?"

Caterine, who looked about her furtively, as if to satisfy herself that there was no one present but themselves, said,--

"Now, Miss Goodwin, everything depends on whether you'll answer me one question truly, and you needn't be afeard to spake the truth to me."

"Is it concerning myself?"

"It is, Miss Goodwin, and another, too, but princ.i.p.ally yourself."

"But what right have you, Caterine, to question me upon my own affairs?"

"No right, miss; but I wish to prevent you from, harm."

"I thank you for your good wishes, Caterine; but what is it you would say?"

"Is it true, Miss Alice, that you and Mr. Woodward are coortin'?"

"It is not, Caterine," replied Alice, uttering the disavowal with a good deal of earnestness; "there is no truth whatsoever in it; nothing can be more false and groundless--I wonder how such a rumor could have got abroad; it certainly could not proceed from Mr. Woodward."

"It did not, indeed, Miss Alice; but it did from his brother, who, it seems, is very fond of him, and said he was glad of it; but indeed, miss, it delights my heart to hear that there is no truth in it. Mr.

Woodward, G.o.d save us! is no fit husband for any Christian! woman."

"Why so?" asked Alice, laboring under, some vague sense of alarm.

"Why, Heavenly Father! Miss Alice, sure it's well known he has the Evil Eye; it's in the family upon his mother's side."

"My G.o.d!" exclaimed Alice, who became instantly as pale as death, "if that be true, Caterine, it's shocking."

"True," replied Caterine; "did you never I observe his eyes?"

"Not particularly."

"Did you remark that they're of different colors? that one of them is as black as the devil's, and the other a gray?"

"I never observed that," replied Alice, who really never had.

"Yes, and I could tell you more than that about him," proceeded Caterine; "they say he's connected wid what's not good. Sure, when they got up a bonfire for him, doesn't all the world know that it was put out by a shower of blood; and that's a proof that he's a favorite wid the devil and the fairies."

"I believe," replied Alice, "that there is no doubt whatsoever about the shower of blood; but I should not consider that fact as proof that he is a favorite with either the devil or the fairies."

"Ay, but you don't know, miss, that this is the way they have of showin'

it. Then, ever since he has come to the country, Bet Harramount, the witch, in the shape of a white hare, is come back to the neighborhood, and the _Shawn-dhinne-dhuv_ is now seen about the Haunted House, oftener than he ever was. It's well known that the white hare plays about Mr.

Woodward like a dog, and that she goes into the Haunted House, too, every night."

"And what brought you to tell me all this, Caterine?" asked Alice.

"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 n.o.body 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 a.s.sure 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 pa.s.sed between them,--who had heard of his falsehood and profligacy, and who never would have alluded to them had she not been questioned. So far, then, Woodward, she felt, stood without blame with respect to his brother. And how could she suspect Caterine to have been the agent of that gentleman, when she knew now that her object in seeking an interview with herself was to put her on her guard against him? The case was clear, and, to her, dreadful as it was clear. She felt herself now, however, in that mood which no sympathy can alleviate or remove. She experienced no wish to communicate her distress to any one, but resolved to preserve the secret in her own bosom. Here, then, was she left to suffer the weight of a twofold affliction--the dread of Woodward, with which Caterine's intelligence had filled her heart, feeble, and timid, and credulous as it was upon any subject of a superst.i.tious tendency--and the still deeper distress which weighed her down in consequence of Charles Lindsay's treachery and dishonor. Alas! poor Alice's heart was not one for struggles, nurtured and bred up, as she had been, in the very wildest spirit of superst.i.tion, in all its degrading ramifications. There was something in the imagination and const.i.tution of the poor girl which generated and cherished the superst.i.tions which prevailed in her day. She could not throw them off her mind, but dwelt upon them with a kind of fearful pleasure which we can understand from those which operated upon our own fancies in our youth. These prepare the mind for the reception of a thousand fictions concerning ghosts, witches, fairies, apparitions, and a long catalogue of nonsense, equally disgusting and repugnant to reason and common-sense. It is not surprising, then, that poor Alice's mind on that night was filled with phantasms of the most feverish and excited description. As far as she could, however, she concealed her agitation from her parents, but not so successfully as to prevent them from perceiving that she was laboring under some extraordinary and unaccountable depression. This unfortunately was too true. On that night she experienced a series of such wild and frightful visions as, when she was startled out of them, made her dread to go again to sleep. The white hare, the Black Spectre, but, above all, the fearful expression her alarmed fancy had felt in Woodward's eye, which was riveted upon her, she thought, with a baleful and demoniacal glance, that pierced and prostrated her spirit with its malignant and supernatural power; all these terrible images, with fifty other incoherent chimeras, flitted before the wretched girl's imagination during her feverish slumbers.

Towards morning she sank into a somewhat calmer state of rest, but still with occasional and flitting glimpses of the same horrors.

So far the master-spirit had set, at least, a portion of his machinery in motion, in order to work out his purposes; but we shall find that his designs became deeper and blacker as he proceeded in his course.

In a few days Alice became somewhat relieved from the influence of these tumultuous and spectral phantasms which had run riot in her terrified fancy; and this was princ.i.p.ally owing to the circ.u.mstance of her having prevailed upon one of the maid-servants, a girl named Bessy Mangan, Barney Casey's sweetheart, to sleep privately in her room. The attack had reduced and enfeebled her very much, but still she was slightly improved and somewhat relieved in her spirits. The shock, and the nervous paroxysm that accompanied it, had nearly pa.s.sed away, and she was now anxious, for the sake of her health, to take as much exercise as she could. Still--still--the two leading thoughts would recur to her--that of Charles's treachery, and the terrible gift of curse possessed by his brother Henry; and once more her heart would sink to the uttermost depths of distress and terror. The supernatural, however, in the course of a little time, prevailed, as it was only reasonable to suppose it would in such a temperament as hers; and as her mind proceeded to struggle with the two impressions, she felt that her dread of Woodward was gradually gaining upon and absorbing the other. Her fear of him, consequently, was deadly; that terrible and malignant eye--notwithstanding its dark brilliancy and awful beauty, alas! too, significant of its power--was constantly before her imagination, gazing upon her with a fixed, determined, and mysterious look, accompanied by a smile of triumph, which deepened its satanity, if we may be allowed to coin a word, at every glance. It was not mere antipathy she felt for him now, but dread and horror. How, then, was she to act? She had pledged herself to receive his visits upon one condition, and to permit him to continue a friendly intimacy altogether apart from love. How, then, could she violate her word, or treat him with rudeness, who had always not only treated her with courtesy, but expressed an interest in her happiness which she had every reason to believe sincere? Thus was the poor girl entangled with difficulties on every side without possessing any means of releasing herself from them.

In a few days after this she was sitting in the drawing-room when Woodward unexpectedly entered it, and saluted her with great apparent good feeling and politeness. The surprise caused her to become as pale as death; she felt her very limbs relax with weakness, and her breath for a few moments taken away from her; she looked upon him with an expression of alarm and fear which she could not conceal, and it was with some difficulty that she was at length enabled to speak.

"You will excuse me, sir," she said, "for not rising; I am very nervous, and have not been at all well for the last week or upwards."

"Indeed, Miss Goodwin, I am very sorry to hear this; I trust it is only a mere pa.s.sing indisposition; I think the complaint is general, for my sister has also been ailing much the same way for the last few days.

Don't be alarmed, Miss Goodwin, it is nothing, and won't signify. You should mingle more in society; you keep too much alone."

"But I do not relish society; I never mingle in it that I don't feel exhausted and depressed."

"That certainly makes a serious difference; in such a case, then, I imagine society would do you more harm than good. I should not have intruded on you had not your mother requested me to come up and try to raise your spirits--a pleasure which I would gladly enjoy if I could."

"I am much obliged to you, Mr. Woodward," she replied; "I hope a short time will remove this unusual depression, and I must only have a little patience."

"Just so, Miss Goodwin; a little time, as you say, will restore you to yourself."

Now all this was very courteous and kind of Mr. Woodward, and might have raised her spirits were it not for the eye. From the moment he entered the apartment that dreaded instrument of his power was fixed upon her with a look so concentrated, piercing, and intense, that it gave a character of abstraction to all he said. In other words, she felt as if his language proceeded out of his lips unconsciously, and that some mysterious purport of his heart emanated from his eye. It appeared to her that he was thinking of something secret connected with herself, to which his words bore no reference whatsoever. She neither knew what to do nor what to say under this terrible and permeating gaze; it was in vain she turned away her eyes; she knew--she felt--that his was upon her--that it was drinking up her strength--that, in fact, the evil influence was; mingling with and debilitating her frame, and operating upon all her faculties. There was still, however, a worse symptom, and one which gave that gaze a significance that appalled her--this was the smile of triumph which she had seen playing coldly but triumphantly about his lips in her dreams. That smile was the feather to the arrow that pierced her, and that was piercing her at that moment--it was the cold but glittering glance of the rattlesnake, when breaking down by the poison of his eyes the power of resistance in his devoted victim.

"Mr. Woodward," said she, after a long pause, "I am unable to bear an interview--have the goodness to withdraw, and when you go down-stairs send my mother up. Excuse me, sir; but you must perceive how very ill I have got within a few minutes."