r rather, said I, there is too much, the _much_ absorbs the _many_;
some one mighty evil transcends and quells all particulars. At length the
door was closed, and the man was gone. Hannah crept slowly along the
passage, and looked in hesitatingly. Her very movements and stealthy pace
testified that she had heard nothing which, even by comparison, she could
think good news. 'Tell me not now, Hannah,' I said; 'wait till we are in
the open air.' She went up-stairs again. How short seemed the time till she
descended!--how I longed for further respite! 'Hannah!' I said at length
when we were fairly moving upon the road, 'Hannah! I am too sure you have
nothing good to tell. But now tell me the worst, and let that be in the
fewest words possible.'

'Sir,' she said, 'we had better wait until we reach the office; for really I
could not understand the man. He says that my mistress is detained upon some
charge; but _what_, I could not at all make out. He was a man that knew
something of you, sir, I believe, and he wished to be civil, and kept
saying, "Oh! I dare say it will turn out nothing at all, many such charges
are made idly and carelessly, and some maliciously." "But what charges?" I
cried, and then he wanted to speak privately to you. But I told him that of
all persons he must not speak to you, if he had anything painful to tell;
for that you were too much disturbed already, and had been for some hours,
out of anxiety and terror about my mistress, to bear much more. So, when he
heard that, he was less willing to speak freely than before. He might prove
wrong, he said; he might give offence; things might turn out far otherwise
than according to first appearances; for his part, he could not believe
anything amiss of so sweet a lady. And alter all it would be better to wait
till we reached the office.'

Thus much then was clear--Agnes was under some accusation. This was already
worse than the worst I had anticipated. 'And then,' said I, thinking aloud
to Hannah, 'one of two things is apparent to me; either the accusation is
one of pure hellish malice, without a colour of probability or the shadow of
a foundation, and that way, alas! I am driven in my fears by that Hungarian
woman's prophecy; or, which but for my desponding heart I should be more
inclined to think, the charge has grown out of my poor wife's rustic
ignorance as to the usages then recently established by law with regard to
the kind of money that could be legally t