His party was out, and he hoped for higher station on its return to power.

Many perplexities were therefore buzzing about his head; among them at present one sufficiently magnified and voracious to swallow the remainder.

He added force to the interrogation as to why that Bell should sound its inhuman strokes twice, by asking himself why he was there to hear it! A strange suspicion of a bewitchment might have enlightened him if he had been a man accustomed to yield to the peculiar kind of sorcery issuing from that sex.

He rather despised the power of women over men: and nevertheless he was there, listening to that Bell, instead of having obeyed the call of his family duties, when the latter were urgent.

He had received letters at Lugano, summoning him home, before he set forth on his present expedition.