heir patience and curiosity have long consumed
themselves away."

"Then, after all, it may be only the whim of an eccentric woman that
leads her thus to persecute an inoffensive, industrious person?"

"I cannot think so. I am persuaded there is some peculiar occurrence
in their past lives that has thus mysteriously associated them--some
conscious secret that, by its influence, draws them forcibly into
contact. What the nature of this strange sympathy may be, I cannot
form the least idea."

"Has no one attempted to unriddle it before now?"

"Not with any prospect of success. Of course there have been a
thousand conjectures. Among the lower orders of people, the prevalent
opinion is, that the woman once possessed a large sum of money, out of
which this Maunsell (for such is his name) contrived to cheat her; and
that she has ever since _haunted_ him, as they very appropriately term
it. But this offence I am inclined to think infinitely too light a one
to draw upon him the grievous punishment which has been so many years
inflicted on him. One of our neighbours, Rochfort, a very
matter-of-fact sort of man, not at all given to the marvellous,
asserts, that he witnessed by accident what he is sure was the first
meeting of the Pair after the man's arrival in this quarter. It was
late in the evening; Rochfort was standing, he says, in the shadow of
a gateway that breaks up the long blank wall of a large timber-yard
that belongs to him, at some distance from this, and which skirts a
lonely and unfrequented road leading to Kennington. He is positive
there was not a human being but himself within sight or hearing, when
he perceived the milkman coming along by the wall, his footsteps
echoing loudly up the dusty path. Not choosing to encounter a stranger
at the moment in such a spot, my friend withdrew further into the
shadow of the gateway. The man, in passing it, happening to drop some
pieces of money from his hand, stooped to recover then; and while so
engaged, a female, who, Rochfort asserts, must have risen out of the
earth on the instant, suddenly appeared standing at the searcher's
side, perfectly motionless, and muffled in those dark funereal
garments that have since been so familiar to our eyes. On lifting his
head the man perceived her, started, but, my informant says, it was
more the subdued start of one accustomed to face horror, than the
overwhelming dismay of a person terrified for the first time: he
folded his arm