All the time that the neighbours had looked on his white head in church as the very standard of probity, and all the prudential virtues rewarded, they were admiring and honouring a masked assassin.

They had been bringing into their homes and families an undivulged and terrible monster.

The wher-wolf had walked the homely streets of their village.

The ghoul, unrecognised, had prowled among the graves of their church-yard.

One of their fairest princesses, the lady of Belmont, had been on the point of being sacrificed to a vampire.
Horror, curiosity, and amazement, were everywhere.
Charles Nutter, it was rumoured, was to be discharged on bail early, and it was mooted in the club that a deputation of the neighbours should ride out to meet him at the boundaries of Chapelizod, welcome him there with an address, and accompany him to the Mills as a guard of honour; but cooler heads remembered the threatening and unsettled state of things at that domicile, and thought that Nutter would, all things considered, like a quiet return best; which view of the affair was, ultimately, acquiesced in.
For Mary Matchwell, at the Mills, the tidings which had thrown the town into commotion had but a solitary and a selfish interest.