At this time she had been for some painful months in possession of a most important one--painful, I say, because all those months she had discovered no possibility of making use of it. The trial had been hard. Her one passion was to drive the dark horses of society, and here she had been sitting week after week on the coach-box over the finest team she had ever handled, ramping and “foming tarre,” unable to give them their heads because the demon-grooms had disappeared and left the looped traces dangling from their collars. She had followed Florimel from Portlossie--to Edinburgh, and then to London, but not yet had seen how to approach her with probable advantage. In the meantime she had renewed old relations with a certain herb-doctor in Kentish Town, at whose house she was now accommodated. There she had already begun to entice the confidences of maid-servants, by use of what evil knowledge she had, and pretence to more, giving herself out as a wise woman. Her faith never failed her that, if she but kept handling the fowls of circumstance, one or other of them must at length drop an egg of opportunity in her lap. When she stumbled upon the schoolmaster, preaching in a chapel near her own haunts, she felt something more like a gust of gratitude to the dark power that sat behind and pulled the strings of events--for thus she saw through her own projected phantom the heart of the universe--than she had ever yet experienced. If there were such things as special providences, here, she said, was one; if not, then it was better luck than she had looked for. The main point in it was that the dominie seemed likely after all to turn out a popular preacher; then beyond a doubt other Scotch people would gather to him; this or that person might turn up, and anyone might turn out useful; one thread might be knotted to another, until all together had made a clue to guide her straight through the labyrinth to the centre, to lay her hand on the collar of the demon of the house of Lossie. It was the biggest game of her life, and had been its game long before the opening of my narrative. CHAPTER XXXV. THE EVIL GENIUS.