Mr.Linley's conduct was perfectly incomprehensible.

He had always borne the highest character--a good landlord, a kind father, a devoted husband.

And yet, after more than eight years of exemplary married life, he had disgraced himself.

The minister of the parish, preaching on the subject, had attributed this extraordinary outbreak of vice on the part of an otherwise virtuous man, to a possession of the devil.

Assuming "the devil," in this case, to be only a discreet and clerical way of alluding from the pulpit to a woman, the landlord was inclined to agree with the minister.