And he is gone away I don't know where.' She guessed to whom he alluded; for Rhoda Brook's story had in the course of years become known to her; though not a word had ever passed between her husband and herself on the subject.

Neither had she ever spoken to him of her visit to Conjuror Trendle, and of what was revealed to her, or she thought was revealed to her, by that solitary heath-man.
She was now five-and-twenty; but she seemed older.
'Six years of marriage, and only a few months of love,' she sometimes whispered to herself.

And then she thought of the apparent cause, and said, with a tragic glance at her withering limb, 'If I could only again be as I was when he first saw me!' She obediently destroyed her nostrums and charms; but there remained a hankering wish to try something else--some other sort of cure altogether.
She had never revisited Trendle since she had been conducted to the house of the solitary by Rhoda against her will; but it now suddenly occurred to Gertrude that she would, in a last desperate effort at deliverance from this seeming curse, again seek out the man, if he yet lived.

He was entitled to a certain credence, for the indistinct form he had raised in the glass had undoubtedly resembled the only woman in the world who--as she now knew, though not then--could have a reason for bearing her ill- will.

The visit should be paid.
This time she went alone, though she nearly got lost on the heath, and roamed a considerable distance out of her way.