We were relieved on getting nearer it and on being informed that it was merely an ear trumpet through which questions have to be put to deaf penitents who now and then turn up for general unravelment and absolution.

After what had passed about the poets, it did not seem likely that Lentulus had all systems by heart; but who could say he had not seized that thread which may somewhere hang out loosely from the web of things and be the clue of unravelment?

Still the etymology is referable to the breaking down of "some bridge," (pons, bridge; fractus, broken,) but this unravelment is not antiquarian.