And, the nature of man being such as Heaven has made it, what need to say that I bent my steps to the cottage with all convenient speed?
The only weapon of an ill-used lover (nay, I will not argue the merits of the case again) was ready to my hand.
Yet my impatience availed little; for there, on the seat that stood by the door, sat my good friend the Vicar, discoursing in pleasant leisure with the lady who named herself Cydaria.
"It is true," he was saying.

"I fear it is true, though you're over young to have learnt it." "There are schools, sir," she returned, with a smile that had (or so it seemed to me) a touch--no more--of bitterness in it, "where such lessons are early learnt." "They are best let alone, those schools," said he.
"And what's the lesson ?" I asked, drawing nearer.
Neither answered.

The Vicar rested his hands on the ball of his cane, and suddenly began to relate old Betty Nasroth's prophecy to his companion.

I cannot tell what led his thoughts to it, but it was never far from his mind when I was by.

She listened with attention, smiling brightly in whimsical amusement when the fateful words, pronounced with due solemnity, left the Vicar's lips.
"It is a strange saying," he ended, "of which time alone can show the truth." She glanced at me with merry eyes, yet with a new air of interest.