Lady Kildhurm, if she could not properly be called insane, was none the less in a very abnormal mental state. The attitude of her mind, indeed, might be considered almost the reverse of that usual to mortals: for to her the material world appeared visionary and unstable, and the objects of her inner life were her only realities. Being thus removed from sympathy with her fellow-creatures, she necessarily occupied a place apart, where she commanded the respect, and sometimes the awe, of those who came into contact with her, but never their comprehension. Always a striking-looking woman, her appearance was now invested with a solemn majesty, to which the shadow of the tragedy with which she had been connected no doubt lent impressiveness. By degrees she adopted certain peculiarities of costume and demeanour and fell into various eccentricities of speech and conduct, all of which tended to confirm the country folks of the neighbourhood in the opinion that the lady of Kildhurm was a species of wise-woman, or sibyl, acquainted with supernatural lore, and able to give them a good harvest or a bad rheumatism according as her whim might be. Of course when a delusion of this kind once gets a footing in the popular mind, nothing can occur, either good or bad, which will not be cited in support of it. Fortunately for Lady Kildhurm, it was generally agreed that her salutary outweighed her hostile influence. Mothers brought their sick children to her to touch, as if she had been a monarch; and fathers sought her advice on questions of business, and shaped her vague and wandering utterances into profoundly pertinent replies. Thus, without being necessarily aware of it, the poor lady created around her a voluntary host of feudal retainers, quite as loyal as those which the former lords of Kildhurm had lost, and much more willing and unstinting in the matter of supplies of provisions, and of tributary hay and corn. So it happened that the domestic economy of Kildhurm Tower had not, for many years past, been in so prosperous a condition as it was now. The curse which seemed to have been darkening over the place for several successive generations, had now begun to lift and lighten, as if it had done its worst. Mrs. Chepstow also remained at the Tower, and practically had the entire charge of the household and of the education of young Sir Philip, and had moreover contributed to this better state of things by making over to the heir the whole of the fortune which Colonel Banyon had bequeathed to her; reserving to herself, until the boy came of age, the right of spending the income of this estate for the common benefit of the family. It will be seen, therefore, that, leaving out the fact that the lord of the Tower had died a violent and mysterious death, and that his wife had lost her reason in consequence, Kildhurm had not much more cause to complain of its destiny than have other ancient and partially decayed families.