"Ah! you think I'm afraid of him? No--they don't breed cowards where I come from. I never heard that idea but once before; that was at the Truro fair. I wasn't in very good company, and they 'planted' a big miner on me at last. He wanted me to wrestle, and when I wouldn't, he said--just what you did. But I remember all the others laughed at him. They know _us_ in those parts, you see. He'd better have kept quiet; for though he puzzled me at first with a 'back trick' he had, I knew more than he did, and he got an awkward fall; I don't think he'll ever do a good day's work again." He paused, and his brow darkened strangely, and all his face changed, till it resembled more closely than it had often done the portraits of come of the "bitter, bad Tresilyans." "I suppose you mean well, Mr. Fullarton, but I'm not going to thank you. We can manage our affairs without your meddling; and if you're wise you'll leave us alone." It will be seen that the chaplain did not take much by his motion. Neither was Fanny Molyneux well satisfied with the turn affairs had taken lately. That poor little "white witch" was really alarmed by the unruly character of the spirit that she had been anxious to raise; she did not know the proper formula for sending it back to its own place; and, if she had, the stubborn demon would only have mocked at her simple incantations. Though she loved Cecil dearly, she was too much in awe of her to venture upon remonstrance or warning; indeed, the few mild hints that she _did_ throw out had not met with such success as to tempt her to follow them up. So she was, perforce, reduced to an unarmed neutrality. Her husband was perhaps the most thoroughly uncomfortable of the party. He knew the circumstances and bearings of the question better than any one else, and would have sacrificed a good deal ("his right hand," I believe, is the proper phrase) to have averted the probable result. But he had not sufficient strength of mind to take the decided measures that might have been of some avail; in fact, he had a vague idea that to act on the offensive against his old comrade would be unpardonable treachery. Arguing with the latter was simply absurd; for this reason, if for no other, that from the moment his feelings became really interested, no amount of diplomacy would have induced him to enter upon the subject. Harry went about with a miserable, helpless sense of complicity weighing him down, which was much aggravated by a few words which dropped one morning from Dick Tresilyan.