If, as it was hinted, Parson Jarner knew the reason for this penitential life, never by word, or deed, or look did he reveal such unholy knowledge. No Sphinx could be more secretive than this simple divine when it so pleased him, therefore the villagers had little chance of having their curiosity gratified in that direction. The vicar paid frequent visits to the recluse, and always returned therefrom with a meditative air and frowning brow. His flock wondered at this, wondered at Miss Linisfarne's seclusion, wondered at everything connected with the Court, till after the lapse of a decade the novelty of the thing wore itself out, and they ceased wondering altogether. Yet they were constantly on the watch for the happening of some untoward event, and hoped, not without reason, to some day know the truth. Miss Linisfarne, being an invalid, was usually confined to one apartment--a great drawing-room which overlooked the terrace. During the early years of her exile--for so she termed it--she had enjoyed perfect health, and then drove frequently through the village on her way up the winding road to the moors. She had even strolled about the park, in those places where the savage wildness of the place permitted her to walk with comparative ease. Now all was changed. She never went beyond the gates, nor did she walk in the grounds, but when not lying on her couch, paced languidly up and down the terrace, or, if the weather was bad, exercised her feeble limbs in the picture-gallery. Can you conceive a more pitiful picture than that of this lonely figure wandering through the corridors, and galleries, and vast rooms of this desolate house? With such a tenant dwelling amid such surroundings, it was little to be wondered at that the Court gained the reputation of being haunted. Miss Linisfarne was reported to be wealthy, but not all the treasures of Solomon would have tempted a Farbis man to penetrate the mansion after dark. And this same superstition preserved the Court from the intrusion of the villagers either as visitors, beggars, or burglars. They dreaded even to pass the gates after dusk, and with fertile imagination began to weave strange stories of the lonely lady in the lonely house. Parson Jarner discouraged these tales, and reproved the tellers, but notwithstanding his prohibition, Farbis folk still held to their opinions. They declared that the Court was haunted, that Miss Linisfarne was a witch, that orgies were held in the empty rooms at midnight, and that cries of tortured women and of dying men could be heard at night. With such fancies did the villagers beguile the winter evenings over their fires. Superstition was strangely ingrained in the nature of the Farbis folk, and all Parson Jarner's arguments failed to eradicate their deeply rooted beliefs.