solemnity on her white,
ghastly features as she spoke, and pointed to the sky, after which she
passed on in silence and took no further notice of the Black Baronet.

It is very difficult to describe the singular variety of sensations
which her conversation, extraordinary, wild, and mysterious as it was,
caused this remarkable man to experience. He knew not what to make of
it. One thing was certain, however, and he could not help admitting it
to himself, that, during their short and singular dialogue, she had, he
knew not how, obtained and exercised an extraordinary ascendency over
him. He looked after her, but she was proceeding calmly along, precisely
as if they had not spoken.

"She is certainly the greatest mystery in the shape of woman," he said
to himself, as he proceeded, "that I have ever yet met--that is, if she
be a thing of flesh and blood--for to me she seems to belong more to
death and its awful accessories, than to life and its natural reality.
How in the devil's name could she have known that I locked that
obstinate and undutiful girl up. This is altogether inexplicable, upon
principles affecting only the ordinary powers of common humanity. Then
she affirmed, prophesied, or what you will, that Lucy and Dunroe will
be married--willingly and happily! That certainly is strange, and as
agreeable as strange; but I will doubt nothing after the incident of the
locking up, so strangely revealed to me too, at a moment when, perhaps,
no human being knew it but Lucy and myself. And, what is stranger still,
she knows the state of the girl's affections, and that she at present
detests Dunroe. Yet, stay, have I not seen her somewhere before? She
said so herself. There is a faint impression on me that her face is not
altogether unfamiliar to me, but I cannot recall either time or place,
and perhaps the impression is a wrong one."

CHAPTER IX. Candor and Dissimulation

Glenshee Castle was built by the father of the then Lord Cullamore, at
a cost of upwards of one hundred thousand pounds. Its general effect and
situation were beautiful, imposing, and picturesque in the extreme. Its
north and east sides, being the principal fronts, contained the state
apartments, while the other sides, for the building was a parallelogram,
contained the offices, and were overshadowed, or nearly altogether
concealed, by trees of a most luxuriant growth. In the east front stood
a magnificent circular tower, in fine proportion with