popular mind by a conviction--founded on
no particle of evidence--that the priest was at the bottom of all the
mischief.

Thus far I have spoken from hearsay evidence mostly. What I have next to
tell will be the result of my own personal experience.

CHAPTER II.

ABOUT five months after Alfred Monkton came of age I left college, and
resolved to amuse and instruct myself a little by traveling abroad.

At the time when I quitted England young Monkton was still leading
his secluded life at the Abbey, and was, in the opinion of everybody,
sinking rapidly, if he had not already succumbed, under the hereditary
curse of his family. As to the Elmslies, report said that Ada had
benefited by her sojourn abroad, and that mother and daughter were on
their way back to England to resume their old relations with the heir of
Wincot. Before they returned I was away on my travels, and wandered
half over Europe, hardly ever planning whither I should shape my course
beforehand. Chance, which thus led me everywhere, led me at last to
Naples. There I met with an old school friend, who was one of the
_attaches_ at the English embassy, and there began the extraordinary
events in connection with Alfred Monkton which form the main interest of
the story I am now relating.

I was idling away the time one morning with my friend the _attache_
in the garden of the Villa Reale, when we were passed by a young man,
walking alone, who exchanged bows with my friend.

I thought I recognized the dark, eager eyes, the colorless cheeks, the
strangely-vigilant, anxious expression which I remembered in past times
as characteristic of Alfred Monkton's face, and was about to question my
friend on the subject, when he gave me unasked the information of which
I was in search.

"That is Alfred Monkton," said he; "he comes from your part of England.
You ought to know him."

"I do know a little of him," I answered; "he was engaged to Miss Elmslie
when I was last in the neighborhood of Wincot. Is he married to her
yet?"

"No, and he never ought to be. He has gone the way of the rest of the
family--or, in plainer words, he has gone mad."

"Mad! But I ought not to be surprised at hearing that, after the reports
about him in England."

"I speak from no reports; I speak from what he has said and done before
me, and before hundreds of other people. Surely you must have heard of
it?"

"Never. I have been out of the way of news from Naples or England for