Still he thought it barely possible that the change of air and the waters of the celebrated spring might recover her, notwithstanding all his inhuman anticipations.
His brother, also, according to the surgeon's last report, afforded hopes of convalescence.

A kind of terror came over him that his plans might fail, because he felt almost certain that if Alice and his brother both recovered, Mr.Lindsay might, or rather would, mount his old hobby, and insist on having them married, in the teeth of all opposition on the part of either himself or his mother.

This was a gloomy prospect for him, and one which he could not contemplate without falling back upon still darker schemes.
After the night on which Barney Casey had seen him and the Black Spectre together we need scarcely say that he watched Barney closely, nor that Barney watched him with as keen a vigilance.

Whatever Woodward may have actually felt upon the subject of the apparition, Barney was certainly undecided as to its reality; or if there existed any bias at all, it was in favor of that reality.

Why did Woodward's arm tremble, and why did the man, who was supposed ignorant of fear, exhibit so much terror and agitation on the occasion?
Still, on the other hand, there appeared to be a conversation, as it were, between them, and a familiarity of manner considerably at variance with Woodward's version of the circumstances.
Be this as it might, he felt it to be a subject on which he could, by no process of reasoning, come to anything like a definite conclusion.
Woodward now determined to consult his mother as to the plan of their future operations.