his wife, 'go,
sweetheart. Mrs. Macnamara, this must be explained,' he added; and
taking her by the hand, he led her in silence to the hall-door, and
signed to the driver.

'Oh! thank you, Mr. Nutter,' she stammered; 'but the coach is not mine;
it came with that lady who's with Mrs. Nutter.'

He had up to this moved with her like a somnambulist.

'Ay, that lady; and who the devil is she?' and he seized her arm with a
sudden grasp that made her wince.

'Oh! that lady!' faltered Mrs. Mack--'she's, I believe--she's Mrs.
Matchwell--the--the lady that advertises her abilities.'

'Hey! I know--the fortune-teller, and go-between,--her!'

She was glad he asked her no more questions, but let her go, and stood
in a livid meditation, forgetting to bid her good evening. She did not
wait, however, for his courteous dismissal, but hurried away towards
Chapelizod. The only thing connected with the last half-hour's events
that seemed quite clear and real to the scared lady was the danger of
being overtaken by that terrible woman, and a dreadful sense of her own
share as an accessory in the untold mischief that had befallen poor Mrs.
Nutter.

In the midst of her horrors and agitation Mrs. Mack's curiosity was not
altogether stunned. She wondered vaguely, as she pattered along, with
what dreadful exhibition of her infernal skill Mary Matchwell had
disordered the senses of poor little Mrs. Nutter--had she called up a
red-eyed, sooty-raven to her shoulder--as old Miss Alice Lee (when she
last had a dish of tea with her) told her she had once done before--and
made the ominous bird speak the doom of poor Mrs. Nutter from that
perch? or had she raised the foul fiend in bodily shape, or showed her
Nutter's dead face through the water?

With these images flitting before her brain, she hurried on at her best
pace, fancying every moment that she heard the rumble of the accursed
coach behind her, and longing to see the friendly uniform of the Royal
Irish Artillery, and the familiar house fronts of the cheery little
street, and above all, to hide herself securely among her own household
gods.

When Nutter returned to the parlour his wife had not yet left it.

'I'll attend here, go you up stairs,' said Nutter. He spoke strangely,
and looked odd, and altogether seemed strung up to a high pitch.

Out went Betty, seeing it was no good dawdling; for her master was
resolute and formidable. The room, like others in old-fashioned houses
with