pleased.
The change which had taken place in him became more and more pronounced.
Dark and stern he always looked, and often malignant. He was like a man
possessed of one evil thought which never left him.

There was, besides, the good old Gothic superstition of a bargain or
sale of the Baronet's soul to the arch-fiend. This was, of course, very
cautiously whispered in a place where he had influence. It was only a
coarser and directer version of a suspicion, that in a more credulous
generation penetrated a level of society quite exempt from such follies
in our day.

One evening at dusk, Sir Bale, sitting after his dinner in his window,
saw the tall figure of Feltram, like a dark streak, standing movelessly
by the lake. An unpleasant feeling moved him, and then an impatience. He
got up, and having primed himself with two glasses of brandy, walked
down to the edge of the lake, and placed himself beside Feltram.

"Looking down from the window," said he, nerved with his Dutch courage,
"and seeing you standing like a post, do you know what I began to think
of?"

Feltram looked at him, but answered nothing.

"I began to think of taking a wife--_marrying_."

Feltram nodded. The announcement had not produced the least effect.

"Why the devil will you make me so uncomfortable! Can't you be like
yourself--what you _were_, I mean? I won't go on living here alone with
you. I'll take a wife, I tell you. I'll choose a good church-going
woman, that will have every man, woman, and child in the house on their
marrow-bones twice a day, morning and evening, and three times on
Sundays. How will you like that?"

"Yes, you will be married," said Feltram, with a quiet decision which
chilled Sir Bale, for he had by no means made up his mind to that
desperate step.

Feltram slowly walked away, and that conversation ended.

Now an odd thing happened about this time. There was a family of
Feltram--county genealogists could show how related to the vanished
family of Cloostedd--living at that time on their estate not far from
Carlisle. Three co-heiresses now represented it. They were great
beauties--the belles of their county in their day.

One was married to Sir Oliver Haworth of Haworth, a great family in
those times. He was a knight of the shire, and had refused a baronetage,
and, it was said, had his eye on a peerage. The other sister was married
to Sir William Walsingham, a wealthy baronet; and the third and
youngest, Miss Janet