He might conjecture what dark thoughts and dreadful aptitudes lurked behind the girl's gentle mask, he might strive to learn by what black arts she had been seduced, what power over visible things had been the price of her apostasy, what Sabbath-mark, seal and pledge of that apostasy she bore--but at what peril! At what risk of soul and body! His brain reeled, his blood raced at the thought.
Such things had lately been, he knew.

Had there not been a dreadful outbreak in Alsace--Alsace, the neighbour almost of Geneva--within the last few years.

In Thann and Turckheim, places within a couple of days' journey of Geneva, scores had suffered for such practices; and some of these not old and ugly, but young and handsome, girls and pages of the Court and young wives! Had not the most unlikely persons confessed to practices the most dreadful?
The most innocent in appearance to things unspeakable! But--with a sudden revulsion of feeling--that was in Alsace, he told himself.

That was in Alsace! Such things did not happen here at men's elbows! He must have been mad to think it or dream it.

And, lifting his head, he looked about him.