are ye
sitting up there staring?"

When John Storm returned to his room he found a letter from Parson
Quayle. It was a good-natured, cackling epistle, full of sweet nothings
about Glory and the hospital, about Peel and the discovery of ancient
ruins in the graveyards of the treen chapels, but it closed with this
postscript:

"You will remember old Chalse, a sort of itinerant beggar and the
privileged pet of everybody. The silly old gawk has got hold of your
father and has actually made the old man believe that you are bewitched!
Some one has put the evil eye on you--some woman it would seem--and that
is the reason why you have broken away and behaved so strangely! It is
most extraordinary. That such a foolish superstition should have taken
hold of a man like your father is really quite astonishing, but if it
will only soften his rancour against you and help to restore peace we may
perhaps forgive the distrust of Providence and the outrage on common
sense. All's well that ends well, you know, and we shall all be happy."

XIX.

"Martha's.

"Lost, stolen, or strayed--a man, a clergyman, answers to the name of
John Storm. Or rather he does not answer, having allowed himself to be
written to twice without making so much as a yap or a yowl by way of
reply. Last seen six days ago, when he was suffering from the sulks,
after being in a de'il of a temper, with a helpless and innocent maiden
who 'doesn't know nothin',' that can have given him offence. Any one
giving information of his welfare and whereabouts to the said H. and I.
M. will be generously and appropriately rewarded.

"But, soberly, my dear John Storm, what has become of you? Where are you,
and whatever have you been doing since the day of the dreadful
inquisition? Frightful rumours are flying through the air like knives,
and they cut and wound a poor girl woefully. Therefore be good enough to
reply by return of post--and in person.

"Meantime please accept it as a proof of my eternal regard that after two
knock-down blows received in silence I am once more coming up smiling.
Know, then, that Mr. Drake has justified all expectations, having
compelled Lord Robert to provide for Polly, who is now safely ensconced
in her own country castle somewhere in St. John's Wood, furnished to hand
with servants and vassals complete. Thus you will be charmed to observe
in me the growth of the prophetic instinct, for you will remember my
positive prediction that if a