Half-a-dozen years passed away, and Mr. and Mrs. Lodge's marriedexperience sank into prosiness, and worse. The farmer was usually gloomyand silent: the woman whom he had wooed for her grace and beauty wascontorted and disfigured in the left limb; moreover, she had brought himno child, which rendered it likely that he would be the last of a familywho had occupied that valley for some two hundred years. He thought ofRhoda Brook and her son; and feared this might be a judgment from heavenupon him.

The once blithe-hearted and enlightened Gertrude was changing into anirritable, superstitious woman, whose whole time was given toexperimenting upon her ailment with every quack remedy she came across.She was honestly attached to her husband, and was ever secretly hopingagainst hope to win back his heart again by regaining some at least ofher personal beauty. Hence it arose that her closet was lined withbottles, packets, and ointment-pots of every description--nay, bunches ofmystic herbs, charms, and books of necromancy, which in her schoolgirltime she would have ridiculed as folly.

'Damned if you won't poison yourself with these apothecary messes andwitch mixtures some time or other,' said her husband, when his eyechanced to fall upon the multitudinous array.

She did not reply, but turned her sad, soft glance upon him in such heart-swollen reproach that he looked sorry for his words, and added, 'I onlymeant it for your good, you know, Gertrude.'

'I'll clear out the whole lot, and destroy them,' said she huskily, 'andtry such remedies no more!'

'You want somebody to cheer you,' he observed. 'I once thought ofadopting a boy; but he is too old now. And he is gone away I don't knowwhere.'

She guessed to whom he alluded; for Rhoda Brook's story had in the courseof years become known to her; though not a word had ever passed betweenher husband and herself on the subject. Neither had she ever spoken tohim of her visit to Conjuror Trendle, and of what was revealed to her, orshe thought was revealed to her, by that solitary heath-man.

She was now five-and-twenty; but she seemed older.

'Six years of marriage, and only a few months of love,' she sometimeswhispered to herself. And then she thought of the apparent cause, andsaid, with a tragic glance at her withering limb, 'If I could only againbe as I was when he first saw me!'

She obediently destroyed her nostrums and charms; but there remained ahankering wish to try something else--some other sort of cure altogether.She had never revisited Trendle since she had been conducted to the houseof the solitary by Rhoda against her will; but it now suddenly occurredto Gertrude that she would, in a last desperate effort at deliverancefrom this seeming curse, again seek out the man, if he yet lived. He wasentitled to a certain credence, for the indistinct form he had raised inthe glass had undoubtedly resembled the only woman in the world who--asshe now knew, though not then--could have a reason for bearing her ill-will. The visit should be paid.

This time she went alone, though she nearly got lost on the heath, androamed a considerable distance out of her way. Trendle's house wasreached at last, however: he was not indoors, and instead of waiting atthe cottage, she went to where his bent figure was pointed out to her atwork a long way off. Trendle remembered her, and laying down the handfulof furze-roots which he was gathering and throwing into a heap, heoffered to accompany her in her homeward direction, as the distance wasconsiderable and the days were short. So they walked together, his headbowed nearly to the earth, and his form of a colour with it.

'You can send away warts and other excrescences I know,' she said; 'whycan't you send away this?' And the arm was uncovered.

'You think too much of my powers!' said Trendle; 'and I am old and weaknow, too. No, no; it is too much for me to attempt in my own person.What have ye tried?'

She named to him some of the hundred medicaments and counterspells whichshe had adopted from time to time. He shook his head.

'Some were good enough,' he said approvingly; 'but not many of them forsuch as this. This is of the nature of a blight, not of the nature of awound; and if you ever do throw it off; it will be all at once.'

'If I only could!'

'There is only one chance of doing it known to me. It has never failedin kindred afflictions,--that I can declare. But it is hard to carryout, and especially for a woman.'

'Tell me!' said she.

'You must touch with the limb the neck of a man who's been hanged.'

She started a little at the image he had raised.

'Before he's cold--just after he's cut down,' continued the conjurorimpassively.

'How can that do good?'

'It will turn the blood and change the constitution. But, as I say, todo it is hard. You must get into jail, and wait for him when he'sbrought off the gallows. Lots have done it, though perhaps not suchpretty women as you. I used to send dozens for skin complaints. Butthat was in former times. The last I sent was in '13--near twenty yearsago.'

He had no more to tell her; and, when he had put her into a straighttrack homeward, turned and left her, refusing all money as at first.