wise
resembled the strange-looking old man of the Fell. And now here, close
to the Fell, was a face and figure which in every detail resembled that
ancient stranger whom Hammond had described so graphically.

It was very strange. Could this person be the same her lover had seen
two months ago? And, if so, had he been living at Fellside all the time;
or was he only an occasional visitor of Steadman's?

While she stood for a few moments meditating thus, the old man raised
his head and looked up at her, with eyes that burned like red-hot coals
under his shaggy white brows. The look scared her. There was something
awful in it, like the gaze of an evil spirit, a soul in torment, and she
began to move away, with side-long steps, her eyes riveted on that
uncanny countenance.

'Don't go,' said the man, with an authoritative air, rattling his bony
fingers upon the bench. 'Sit down here by my side, and talk to me. Don't
be frightened, child. You wouldn't, if you knew what they say of me
indoors.' He made a motion of his head towards the windows of the old
wing--'"Harmless," they say, "quite harmless. Let him alone, he's
harmless." A tiger with his claws cut and his teeth drawn--an old,
grey-bearded tiger, ghastly and grim, but harmless--a cobra with the
poison-bag plucked out of his jaw! The venom grows again, child--the
snake's venom--but youth never comes back: Old, and helpless, and
harmless!'

Again Mary tried to move away, but those evil eyes held her as if she
were a bird riveted by the gaze of a serpent.

'Why do you shrink away?' asked the old man, frowning at her. 'Sit down
here, and let me talk to you. I am accustomed to be obeyed'

Old and feeble and shrunken as he was, there was a power in his tone of
command which Mary was unable to resist. She felt very sure that he was
imbecile or mad. She knew that madmen are apt to imagine themselves
great personages, and to take upon themselves, with a wonderful power of
impersonation, the dignity and authority of their imaginary rank; and
she supposed that it must be thus with this strange old man. She
struggled against her sense of terror. After all there could be no real
danger, in the broad daylight, within the precincts of her own home,
within call of the household.

She seated herself on the bench by the unknown, willing to humour him a
little; and he turned himself about slowly, as if every bone in his body
were stiff with age, and looked at her with a deliberate