in soft and timid tones.

"Nay, not so; but O speak not so lightly of things that peril the
immortal soul!"

"Well, I have done," said Ryder. "You are out of danger now; so give you
good day."

He stopped her. "What, before I have thanked you for your goodness. Ah,
Mistress Ryder, 't is on these occasions a priest sins by longing for
riches to reward his benefactors. I have naught to offer you but this
ring; it was my mother's,--my dear mother's." He took it off his finger
to give it her.

But the little bit of goodness that cleaves even to the heart of an
_intrigante_ revolted against her avarice. "Nay, poor soul, I'll not
take it," said she; and put her hands before her eyes not to see it,
for she knew she could not look at it long and spare it.

With this she left him; but, ere she had gone far, her cunning and
curiosity gained the upper hand again, and she whipped behind a great
tree and crouched, invisible all but her nose and one piercing eye.

She saw the priest make a few steps homewards, then look around, then
take Mrs. Gaunt's letter out of his pocket, press it passionately to his
lips, and hide it tenderly in his bosom.

This done, he went home, with his eyes on the ground as usual, and
measured steps. And to all who met him he seemed a creature in whom
religion had conquered all human frailty.

Caroline Ryder hurried home with cruel exultation in her black eyes. But
she soon found that the first thing she had to do was to defend herself.
Leicester and his man met her, and the former looked gloomy, and the
latter reproached her bitterly, called her a double-faced jade, and said
he would tell the Squire of the trick she had played them. But Ryder had
a lie ready in a moment. "'T is you I have saved, not him," said she.
"He is something more than mortal: why, he told me of his own accord
what you were there for; but that, if you were so unlucky as to lay
hands on him, you would rot alive. It seems that has been tried out
Stanhope way; a man did but give him a blow, and his arm was stiff next
day, and he never used it again; and next his hair fell off his head,
and then his eyes they turned to water and ran all out of him, and he
died within the twelvemonth."

Country folk were nearly, though not quite, as superstitious at that
time as in the Middle Ages. "Murrain on him," said Leicester. "Catch me
laying a finger on him. I'm glad he is gone; and I hope he won't never
come back no more."

"Not lik