“It is something like the way dame Nature gathers round a foreign body an envelope of some insensitive tissue which can protect from evil that which it would otherwise harm by contact. If this be an ordered selfishness, then we should pause before we condemn any one for the vice of egoism, for there may be deeper root for its causes than we have knowledge of.”

“There is a reason that all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand.”

“ for I determined that if Death came he should find me ready”

“It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.”

“. . . a wind howling began, which seemed to form all over the country, as far as the imagination could grasp it through the gloom of the night.”

“Whether it is the old lady's fear, or the many ghostly traditions of this place, or the crucifix itself, I do not know, but I am not feeling nearly as easy in my mind as usual.”

“No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be.”

“There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by age they may solve only in part.”

“There are things done today in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very man who discovered electricity, who would themselves not so long before been burned as wizards.”

“The blood is the life!”

“Are we to have nothing tonight?" said one of them, with a low laugh, as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and which moved as though there were some living thing within it. For answer he nodded his head. One of the women jumped forward and opened it. If my ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as of a half smothered child. The women closed round, whilst I was aghast with horror. But as I looked, they disappeared, and with them the dreadful bag.”