CHAPTER XIII. 

The next day I had just dismissed the last of my visiting patients, andwas about to enter my carriage and commence my round, when I receiveda twisted note containing but these words:--

 Call on me to-day, as soon as you can. 

 M. Poyntz. 

A few minutes afterwards I was in Mrs. Poyntz's drawing-room. 

"Well, Allen Fenwick" said she, "I do not serve friends by halves. Nothanks! I but adhere to a principle I have laid down for myself. I spentlast evening with the Ashleighs. Lilian is certainly much altered, --very weak, I fear very ill, and I believe very unskilfuly treated by Dr. Jones. I felt that it was my duty to insist on a change of physician; butthere was something else to consider before deciding who that physicianshould be. I was bound, as your confidante, to consult your own scruplesof honour. Of course I could not say point-blank to Mrs. Ashleigh, 'Dr. Fenwick admires your daughter, would you object to him as a son-in-law?'Of course I could not touch at all on the secret with which you intrustedme; but I have not the less arrived at a conclusion, in agreement with myprevious belief, that not being a woman of the world, Annie Ashleigh hasnone of the ambition which women of the world would conceive for adaughter who has a good fortune and considerable beauty; that herpredominant anxiety is forher child's happiness, and her predominantfear is that her child will die. She would never oppose any attachmentwhich Lilian might form; and if that attachment were for one who hadpreserved her daughter's life, I believe her own heart would gratefullygo with her daughter's. So far, then, as honour is concerned, allscruples vanish. "

I sprang from my seat, radiant with joy. Mrs. Poyntz drylycontinued: "You value yourself on your common-sense, and to that I addressa few words of counsel which may not be welcome to your romance. I saidthat I did not think you and Lilian would suit each other in the long run;reflection confirms me in that supposition. Do not look at me soincredulously and so sadly. Listen, and take heed. Ask yourself what, asa man whose days are devoted to a laborious profession, whose ambition isentwined with its success, whose mind must be absorbed in itspursuits, --ask yourself what kind of a wife you would have sought to win;had not this sudden fancy for a charming face rushed over your betterreason, and obliterated all previous plans and resolutions. Surely someone with whom your heart would have been quite at rest; by whom yourthoughts would have been undistracted from the channels into which yourcalling should concentrate their flow; in short, a serene companion in thequiet holiday of a trustful home! Is it not so?"

"You interpret my own thoughts when they have turned towards marriage. But what is there in Lilian Ashleigh that should mar the picture you havedrawn?"

"What is there in Lilian Ashleigh which in the least accords with thepicture? In the first place, the wife of a young physician should not behis perpetual patient. The more he loves her, and the more worthy she maybe of love, the more her case will haunt him wherever he goes. When hereturns home, it is not to a holiday; the patient he most cares for, theanxiety that most gnaws him, awaits him there. "

"But, good heavens! why should Lilian Ashleigh be a perpetual patient?The sanitary resources of youth are incalculable. And--"

"Let me stop you; I cannot argue against a physician in love! I willgive up that point in dispute, remaining convinced that there is somethingin Lilian's constitution which will perplex, torment, and baffle you. Itwas so with her father, whom she resembles in face and in character. Heshowed no symptoms of any grave malady. His outward form was, likeLilian's, a model of symmetry, except in this, that, like hers, it was tooexquisitely delicate; but when seemingly in the midst of perfect health, at any slight jar on the nerves he would become alarmingly ill. I wassure that he would die young, and he did so. "

"Ay, but Mrs. Ashleigh said that his death was from brain-fever, broughton by over-study. Rarely, indeed, do women so fatigue the brain. Nofemale patient, in the range of my practice, ever died of purely mentalexertion. "

"Of purely mental exertion, no; but of heart emotion, many femalepatients, perhaps? Oh, you own that! I know nothing about nerves; but Isuppose that, whether they act on the brain or the heart, the result tolife is much the same if the nerves be too finely strung for life's dailywear and tear. And this is what I mean, when I say you and Lilian willnot suit. As yet, she is a mere child; her nature undeveloped, and heraffections therefore untried. You might suppose that you had won herheart; she might believe that she gave it to you, and both be deceived. If fairies nowadays condescended to exchange their offspring with thoseof mortals, and if the popular tradition did not represent a fairychangeling as an ugly peevish creature, with none of the grace of itsparents, I should be half inclined to suspect that Lilian was one of theelfin people. She never seems at home on earth; and I do not think shewill ever be contented with a prosaic earthly lot. Now I have told youwhy I do not think she will suit you. I must leave it to yourself toconjecture how far you would suit her. I say this in due season, whileyou may set a guard upon your impulse; while you may yet watch, and weigh, and meditate; and from this moment on that subject I say no more. I lendadvice, but I never throw it away. "

She came here to a dead pause, and began putting on her bonnet andscarf, which lay on the table beside her. I was a little chilled by herwords, and yet more by the blunt, shrewd, hard look and manner which aidedthe effect of their delivery; but the chill melted away in the sudden glowof my heart when she again turned towards me and said, --

"Of course you guess, from these preliminary cautions, that you aregoing into danger? Mrs. Ashleigh wishes to consult you about Lilian, andI propose to take you to her house. "

"Oh, my friend, my dear friend, how can I ever repay you?" I caught herhand, the white firm hand, and lifted it to my lips. 

She drew it somewhat hastily away, and laying it gently on my shoulder, said, in a soft voice, "Poor Allen, how little the world knows either ofus! But how little perhaps we know ourselves! Come, your carriage ishere? That is right; we must put down Dr. Jones publicly and in all ourstate. "

In the carriage Mrs. Poyntz told me the purport of that conversationwith Mrs. Ashleigh to which I owed my re-introduction to Abbots' House. It seems that Mr. Vigors had called early the morning after my firstvisit! had evinced much discomposure on hearing that I had been summoned!dwelt much on my injurious treatment of Dr. Lloyd, whom, as distantlyrelated to himself, and he (Mr. Vigors) being distantly connected with thelate Gilbert Ashleigh, he endeavoured to fasten upon his listener as oneof her husband's family, whose quarrel she was bound in honour to take up. He spoke of me as an infidel "tainted with French doctrines, " and as apractitioner rash and presumptuous; proving his own freedom frompresumption and rashness by flatly deciding that my opinion must bewrong. Previously to Mrs. Ashleigh's migration to L----, Mr. Vigors hadinterested her in the pretended phenomena of mesmerism. He had consulteda clairvoyante, much esteemed by poor Dr. Lloyd, as to Lilian's health, and the clairvoyante had declared her to be constitutionally predisposedto consumption. Mr. Vigors persuaded Mrs. Ashleigh to come at once withhim and see this clairvoyante herself, armed with a lock of Lilian's hairand a glove she had worn, as the media of mesmerical rapport. 

The clairvoyante, one of those I had publicly denounced as an impostor, naturally enough denounced me in return. On being asked solemnly by Mr. Vigors "to look at Dr. Fenwick and see if his influence would bebeneficial to the subject, " the sibyl had become violently agitated, andsaid that, "when she looked at us together, we were enveloped in a blackcloud; that this portended affliction and sinister consequences; that ourrapport was antagonistic. " Mr. Vigors then told her to dismiss my image, and conjure up that of Dr. Jones. Therewith the somnambule became moretranquil, and said: "Dr. Jones would do well if he would be guided byhigher lights than his own skill, and consult herself daily as to theproper remedies. The best remedy of all would be mesmerism. But sinceDr. Lloyd's death, she did not know of a mesmerist, sufficiently gifted, in affinity with the patient. " In fine, she impressed and awed Mrs. Ashleigh, who returned in haste, summoned Dr. Jones, and dismissedmyself. 

"I could not have conceived Mrs. Ashleigh to be so utterly wanting incommon-sense, " said I. "She talked rationally enough when I saw her. "

"She has common-sense in general, and plenty of the sense most common, "answered Mrs. Poyntz; "but she is easily led and easily frightenedwherever her affections are concerned, and therefore, just as easily asshe had been persuaded by Mr. Vigors and terrified by the somnambule, Ipersuaded her against the one, and terrified her against the other. I hadpositive experience on my side, since it was clear that Lilian had beengetting rapidly worse under Dr. Jones's care. The main obstacles I had toencounter in inducing Mrs. Ashleigh to consult you again were, first, herreluctance to disoblige Mr. Vigors, as a friend and connection of Lilian'sfather; and, secondly, her sentiment of shame in re-inviting your opinionafter having treated you with so little respect. Both these difficultiesI took on myself. I bring you to her house, and, on leaving you, I shallgo on to Mr. Vigors, and tell him what is done is my doing, and not to beundone by him; so that matter is settled. Indeed, if you were out of thequestion, I should not suffer Mr. Vigors to re-introduce all thesemummeries of clairvoyance and mesmerism into the precincts of the Hill. Idid not demolish a man I really liked in Dr. Lloyd, to set up a Dr. Jones, whom I despise, in his stead. Clairvoyance on Abbey Hill, indeed! I sawenough of it before. "

"True; your strong intellect detected at once the absurdity of the wholepretence, --the falsity of mesmerism, the impossibility of clairvoyance. "

"No, my strong intellect did nothing of the kind. I do not know whethermesmerism be false or clairvoyance impossible; and I don't wish to know. All I do know is, that I saw the Hill in great danger, --young ladiesallowing themselves to be put to sleep by gentlemen, and pretending theyhad no will of their own against such fascination! Improper and shocking!And Miss Brabazon beginning to prophesy, and Mrs. Leopold Smythequestioning her maid (whom Dr. Lloyd declared to be highly gifted) as toall the secrets of her friends. When I saw this, I said, 'The Hill isbecoming demoralized; the Hill is making itself ridiculous; the Hill mustbe saved!' I remonstrated with Dr. Lloyd as a friend; he remainedobdurate. I annihilated him as an enemy, not to me but to the State. Islew my best lover for the good of Rome. Now you know why I took yourpart, --not because I have any opinion, one way or the other, as to thetruth or falsehood of what Dr. Lloyd asserted; but I have a strong opinionthat, whether they be true or false, his notions were those which are notto be allowed on the Hill. And so, Allen Fenwick, that matter wassettled. "

Perhaps at another time I might have felt some little humiliation to learnthat I had been honoured with the influence of this great potentate not asa champion of truth, but as an instrument of policy; and I might haveowned to some twinge of conscience in having assisted to sacrifice afellow-seeker after science--misled, no doubt, but preferring hisindependent belief to his worldly interest--and sacrifice him tothose deities with whom science is ever at war, --the Prejudices of aClique sanctified into the Proprieties of the World. But at that momentthe words I heard made no perceptible impression on my mind. The gablesof Abbots' House were visible above the evergreens and lilacs; anothermoment, and the carriage stopped at the door. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Mrs. Ashleigh received us in the dining-room. Her manner to me, at first, was a little confused and shy. But my companion soon communicatedsomething of her own happy ease to her gentler friend. After a shortconversation we all three went to Lilian, who was in a little room on theground-floor, fitted up as her study. I was glad to perceive that myinterdict of the deathchamber had been respected. 

She reclined on a sofa near the window, which was, however, jealouslyclosed; the light of the bright May-day obscured by blinds and curtains; alarge fire on the hearth; the air of the room that of a hot-house, --theignorant, senseless, exploded system of nursing into consumption those whoare confined on suspicion of it! She did not heed us as we enterednoiselessly; her eyes were drooped languidly on the floor, and withdifficulty I suppressed the exclamation that rose to my lips on seeingher. She seemed within the last few days so changed, and on the aspect ofthe countenance there was so profound a melancholy! But as she slowlyturned at the sound of our footsteps, and her eyes met mine, a quick blushcame into the wan cheek, and she half rose, but sank back as if the effortexhausted her. There was a struggle for breath, and a low hollow cough. Was it possible that I had been mistaken, and that in that cough was heardthe warning knell of the most insidious enemy to youthful life?

I sat down by her side; I lured her on to talk of indifferentsubjects, --the weather, the gardens, the bird in the cage, which wasplaced on the table near her. Her voice, at first low and feeble, becamegradually stronger, and her face lighted up with a child's innocent, playful smile. No, I had not been mistaken! That was no lymphatic, nerveless temperament, on which consumption fastens as its lawful prey;here there was no hectic pulse, no hurried waste of the vital flame. Quietly and gently I made my observations, addressed my questions, applied my stethoscope; and when I turned my face towards her mother'sanxious, eager eyes, that face told my opinion; for her mother sprangforward, clasped my hand, and said, through her struggling tears, --

"You smile! You see nothing to fear?"

"Fear! No, indeed! You will soon be again yourself, Miss Ashleigh, willyou not?"

"Yes, " she said, with her sweet laugh, "I shall be well now very soon. But may I not have the window open; may I not go into the garden? I solong for fresh air. "

"No, no, darling, " exclaimed Mrs. Ashleigh, "not while the east windslast. Dr. Jones said on no account. On no account, Dr. Fenwick, eh?"

"Will you take my arm, Miss Ashleigh, for a few turns up and down theroom?" said I. "We will then see how far we may rebel against Dr. Jones. "

She rose with some little effort, but there was no cough. At first herstep was languid; it became lighter and more elastic after a few moments. 

"Let her come out, " said I to Mrs. Ashleigh. "The wind is not in theeast, and, while we are out, pray bid your servant lower to the last barin the grate that fire, --only fit for Christmas. "

"But--"

"Ah, no buts! He is a poor doctor who is not a stern despot. "

So the straw hat and mantle were sent for. Lilian was wrapped withunnecessary care, and we all went forth into the garden. Involuntarily wetook the way to the Monk's Well, and at every step Lilian seemed to reviveunder the bracing air and temperate sun. We paused by the well. 

"You do not feel fatigued, Miss Ashleigh?"

"No. "

"But your face seems changed. It is grown sadder. "

"Not sadder. "

"Sadder than when I first saw it, --saw it when you were seated here!" Isaid this in a whisper. I felt her hand tremble as it lay on my arm. 

"You saw me seated here!"

"Yes. I will tell you how some day. "

Lilian lifted her eyes to mine, and there was in them that same surprisewhich I had noticed on my first visit, --a surprise that perplexed me, blended with no displeasure, but yet with a something of vague alarm. 

We soon returned to the house. 

Mrs. Ashleigh made me a sign to follow her into the drawing-room, leavingMrs. Poyntz with Lilian. 

"Well?" said she, tremblingly. 

"Permit me to see Dr. Jones's prescriptions. Thank you. Ay, I thoughtso. My dear madam, the mistake here has been in depressing nature insteadof strengthening; in narcotics instead of stimulants. The main stimulantswhich leave no reaction are air and light. Promise me that I may have myown way for a week, --that all I recommend will be implicitly heeded?"

"I promise. But that cough, --you noticed it?"

"Yes. The nervous system is terribly lowered, and nervous exhaustion is astrange impostor; it imitates all manner of complaints with which it hasno connection. The cough will soon disappear! But pardon my question. Mrs. Poyntz tells me that you consulted a clairvoyants about yourdaughter. Does Miss Ashleigh know that you did so?"

"No; I did not tell her. "

"I am glad of that. And pray, for Heaven's sake, guard her against allthat may set her thinking on such subjects. Above all, guard her againstconcentring attention on any malady that your fears erroneously ascribe toher. It is amongst the phenomena of our organization that you cannotclosely rivet your consciousness on any part of the frame, howeverhealthy, but it will soon begin to exhibit morbid sensibility. Try to fixall your attention on your little finger for half an hour, and before thehalf hour is over the little finger will be uneasy, probably evenpainful. How serious, then, is the danger to a young girl, at the age inwhich imagination is most active, most intense, if you force upon her abelief that she is in danger of a mortal disease! It is a peculiarity ofyouth to brood over the thought of early death much more resignedly, muchmore complacently, than we do in maturer years. Impress on a youngimaginative girl, as free from pulmonary tendencies as you and I are, theconviction that she must fade away into the grave, and though she may notactually die of consumption, you instil slow poison into her system. Hopeis the natural aliment of youth. You impoverish nourishment where youdiscourage hope. As soon as this temporary illness is over, reject foryour daughter the melancholy care which seems to her own mind to mark herout from others of her age. Rear her for the air, which is the kindestlife-giver; to sleep with open windows: to be out at sunrise. Naturewill do more for her than all our drugs can do. You have been hithertofearing Nature; now trust to her. "

Here Mrs. Poyntz joined us, and having, while I had been speaking, writtenmy prescription and some general injunctions, I closed my advice with anappeal to that powerful protectress. 

"This, my dear madam, is a case in which I need your aid, and I ask it. Miss Ashleigh should not be left with no other companion than her mother. A change of faces is often as salutary as a change of air. If you coulddevote an hour or two this very evening to sit with Miss Ashleigh, to talkto her with your usual cheerfulness, and--"

"Annie, " interrupted Mrs. Poyntz, "I will come and drink tea with you athalf-past seven, and bring my knitting; and perhaps, if you ask him, Dr. Fenwick will come too! He can be tolerably entertaining when he likes it. "

"It is too great a tax on his kindness, I fear, " said Mrs. Ashleigh. "But, " she added cordially, "I should be grateful indeed if he would spareus an hour of his time. "

I murmured an assent which I endeavoured to make not too joyous. 

"So that matter is settled, " said Mrs. Poyntz; "and now I shall go to Mr. Vigors and prevent his further interference. "

"Oh, but, Margaret, pray don't offend him, --a connection of my poor dearGilbert's. And so tetchy! I am sure I do not know how you'll manageto--"

"To get rid of him? Never fear. As I manage everything and everybody, "said Mrs. Poyntz, bluntly. So she kissed her friend on the forehead, gaveme a gracious nod, and, declining the offer of my carriage, walked withher usual brisk, decided tread down the short path towards the town. 

Mrs. Ashleigh timidly approached me, and again the furtive hand bashfullyinsinuated the hateful fee. 

"Stay, " said I; "this is a case which needs the most constant watching. Iwish to call so often that I should seem the most greedy of doctors if myvisits were to be computed at guineas. Let me be at ease to effect mycure; my pride of science is involved in it. And when amongst all theyoung ladies of the Hill you can point to none with a fresher bloom, or afairer promise of healthful life, than the patient you intrust to my care, why, then the fee and the dismissal. Nay, nay; I must refer you to ourfriend Mrs. Poyntz. It was so settled with her before she brought me hereto displace Dr. Jones. " Therewith I escaped. 

CHAPTER XV. 

In less than a week Lilian was convalescent; in less than a fortnight sheregained her usual health, --nay, Mrs. Ashleigh declared that she had neverknown her daughter appear so cheerful and look so well. I had establisheda familiar intimacy at Abbots' House; most of my evenings were spentthere. As horse exercise formed an important part of my advice, Mrs. Ashleigh had purchased a pretty and quiet horse for her daughter; and, except the weather was very unfavourable, Lilian now rode daily withColonel Poyntz, who was a notable equestrian, and often accompanied byMiss Jane Poyntz, and other young ladies of the Hill. I was generallyrelieved from my duties in time to join her as she returned homewards. Thus we made innocent appointments, openly, frankly, in her mother'spresence, she telling me beforehand in what direction excursions had beenplanned with Colonel Poyntz, and I promising to fall in with the party--ifmy avocations would permit. At my suggestion, Mrs. Ashleigh now openedher house almost every evening to some of the neighbouring families;Lilian was thus habituated to the intercourse of young persons of her ownage. Music and dancing and childlike games made the old house gay. Andthe Hill gratefully acknowledged to Mrs. Poyntz, "that the Ashleighs wereindeed a great acquisition. "

But my happiness was not uncheckered. In thus unselfishly surroundingLilian with others, I felt the anguish of that jealousy which isinseparable from those earlier stages of love, when the lover as yet haswon no right to that self-confidence which can only spring from theassurance that he is loved. 

In these social reunions I remained aloof from Lilian. I saw her courtedby the gay young admirers whom her beauty and her fortune drew aroundher, --her soft face brightening in the exercise of the dance, which thegravity of my profession rather than my years forbade to join; and herlaugh, so musically subdued, ravishing my ear and fretting my heart as ifthe laugh were a mockery on my sombre self and my presumptuous dreams. But no, suddenly, shyly, her eyes would steal away from those about her, steal to the corner in which I sat, as if they missed me, and, meeting myown gaze, their light softened before they turned away; and the colour onher cheek would deepen, and to her lip there came a smile different fromthe smile that it shed on others. And then--and then--all jealousy, allsadness vanished, and I felt the glory which blends with the growingbelief that we are loved. 

In that diviner epoch of man's mysterious passion, when ideas ofperfection and purity, vague and fugitive before, start forth andconcentre themselves round one virgin shape, --that rises out from the seaof creation, welcomed by the Hours and adorned by the Graces, --how thethought that this archetype of sweetness and beauty singles himself fromthe millions, singles himself for her choice, ennobles and lifts up hisbeing! Though after-experience may rebuke the mortal's illusion, thatmistook for a daughter of Heaven a creature of clay like himself, yet fora while the illusion has grandeur. Though it comes from the senses whichshall later oppress and profane it, the senses at first shrink into shade, awed and hushed by the presence that charms them. All that is brightestand best in the man has soared up like long-dormant instincts of Heaven, to greet and to hallow what to him seems life's fairest dream of theheavenly! Take the wings from the image of Love, and the god disappearsfrom the form!

Thus, if at moments jealous doubt made my torture, so the moment's relieffrom it sufficed for my rapture. But I had a cause for disquiet lessacute but less varying than jealousy. 

Despite Lilian's recovery from the special illness which had moreimmediately absorbed my care, I remained perplexed as to its cause andtrue nature. To her mother I gave it the convenient epithet of "nervous;"but the epithet did not explain to myself all the symptoms I classified byit. There was still, at times, when no cause was apparent orconjecturable, a sudden change in the expression of her countenance, inthe beat of her pulse; the eye would become fixed, the bloom would vanish, the pulse would sink feebler and feebler till it could be scarcely felt;yet there was no indication of heart disease, of which such suddenlowering of life is in itself sometimes a warning indication. The changewould pass away after a few minutes, during which she seemed unconscious, or, at least, never spoke--never appeared to heed what was said to her. But in the expression of her countenance there was no character ofsuffering or distress; on the contrary, a wondrous serenity, that made herbeauty more beauteous, her very youthfulness younger; and when thisspurious or partial kind of syncope passed, she recovered at once withouteffort, without acknowledging that she had felt faint or unwell, butrather with a sense of recruited vitality, as the weary obtain from asleep. For the rest her spirits were more generally light and joyous thanI should have premised from her mother's previous description. She wouldenter mirthfully into the mirth of young companions round her: she hadevidently quick perception of the sunny sides of life; an infantinegratitude for kindness; an infantine joy in the trifles that amuse onlythose who delight in tastes pure and simple. But when talk rose intograver and more contemplative topics, her attention became earnest andabsorbed; and sometimes a rich eloquence, such as I have never before norsince heard from lips so young, would startle me first into a wonderingsilence, and soon into a disapproving alarm: for the thoughts she thenuttered seemed to me too fantastic, too visionary, too much akin to thevagaries of a wild though beautiful imagination. And then I would seek tocheck, to sober, to distract fancies with which my reason had no sympathy, and the indulgence of which I regarded as injurious to the normalfunctions of the brain. 

When thus, sometimes with a chilling sentence, sometimes with ahalf-sarcastic laugh, I would repress outpourings frank and musical as thesongs of a forest-bird, she would look at me with a kind of plaintivesorrow, --often sigh and shiver as she turned away. Only in those modesdid she show displeasure; otherwise ever sweet and docile, and ever, if, seeing that I had pained her, I asked forgiveness, humbling herself ratherto ask mine, and brightening our reconciliation with her angel smile. Asyet I had not dared to speak of love; as yet I gazed on her as the captivegazes on the flowers and the stars through the gratings of his cell, murmuring to himself, "When shall the doors unclose?"

CHAPTER XVI. 

It was with a wrath suppressed in the presence of the fair ambassadress, that Mr. Vigors had received from Mrs. Poyntz the intelligence that I hadreplaced Dr. Jones at Abbots' House not less abruptly than Dr. Jones hadpreviously supplanted me. As Mrs. Poyntz took upon herself the wholeresponsibility of this change, Mr. Vigors did not venture to condemn it toher face; for the Administrator of Laws was at heart no little in awe ofthe Autocrat of Proprieties; as Authority, howsoever established, is inawe of Opinion, howsoever capricious. 

To the mild Mrs. Ashleigh the magistrate's anger was more decidedlymanifested. He ceased his visits; and in answer to a long and deprecatoryletter with which she endeavoured to soften his resentment and win himback to the house, he replied by an elaborate combination of homily andsatire. He began by excusing himself from accepting her invitations, onthe ground that his time was valuable, his habits domestic; and thoughever willing to sacrifice both time and habits where he could do good, heowed it to himself and to mankind to sacrifice neither where his advicewas rejected and his opinion contemned. He glanced briefly, but nothastily, at the respect with which her late husband had deferred to hisjudgment, and the benefits which that deference had enabled him to bestow. He contrasted the husband's deference with the widow's contumely, andhinted at the evils which the contumely would not permit him to prevent. He could not presume to say what women of the world might think due todeceased husbands, but even women of the world generally allowed theclaims of living children, and did not act with levity where theirinterests were concerned, still less where their lives were at stake. Asto Dr. Jones, he, Mr. Vigors, had the fullest confidence in his skill. Mrs. Ashleigh must judge for herself whether Mrs. Poyntz was as good anauthority upon medical science as he had no doubt she was upon shawls andribbons. Dr. Jones was a man of caution and modesty; he did not indulgein the hollow boasts by which charlatans decoy their dupes; but Dr. Joneshad privately assured him that though the case was one that admitted of norash experiments, he had no fear of the result if his own prudent systemwere persevered in. What might be the consequences of any other system, Dr. Jones would not say, because he was too high-minded to express hisdistrust of the rival who had made use of underhand arts to supplant him. But Mr. Vigors was convinced, from other sources of information (meaning, I presume, the oracular prescience of his clairvoyants), that the timewould come when the poor young lady would herself insist on discarding Dr. Fenwick, and when "that person" would appear in a very different light tomany who now so fondly admired and so reverentially trusted him. Whenthat time arrived, he, Mr. Vigors, might again be of use; but, meanwhile, though he declined to renew his intimacy at Abbots' House, or to payunavailing visits of mere ceremony, his interest in the daughter of hisold friend remained undiminished, nay, was rather increased by compassion;that he should silently keep his eye upon her; and whenever anything toher advantage suggested itself to him, he should not be deterred by theslight with which Mrs. Ashleigh had treated his judgment from calling onher, and placing before her conscience as a mother his ideas for herchild's benefit, leaving to herself then, as now, the entireresponsibility of rejecting the advice which he might say, without vanity, was deemed of some value by those who could distinguish between sterlingqualities and specious pretences. 

Mrs. Ashleigh's was that thoroughly womanly nature which instinctivelyleans upon others. She was diffident, trustful, meek, affectionate. Notquite justly had Mrs. Poyntz described her as "commonplace weak, " forthough she might be called weak, it was not because she was commonplace;she had a goodness of heart, a sweetness of disposition, to which thatdisparaging definition could not apply. She could only be calledcommonplace inasmuch as in the ordinary daily affairs of life she had agreat deal of ordinary daily commonplace good-sense. Give her a routineto follow, and no routine could be better adhered to. In the allottedsphere of a woman's duties she never seemed in fault. No household, noteven Mrs. Poyntz's, was more happily managed. The old Abbots' House hadmerged its original antique gloom in the softer character of pleasingrepose. All her servants adored Mrs. Ashleigh; all found it a pleasure toplease her; her establishment had the harmony of clockwork; comfortdiffused itself round her like quiet sunshine round a sheltered spot. Togaze on her pleasing countenance, to listen to the simple talk that lapsedfrom her guileless lips, in even, slow, and lulling murmur, was in itselfa respite from "eating cares. " She was to the mind what the colour ofgreen is to the eye. She had, therefore, excellent sense in all thatrelates to every-day life. There, she needed not to consult another;there, the wisest might have consulted her with profit. But the momentanything, however trivial in itself, jarred on the routine to which hermind had grown wedded, the moment an incident hurried her out of thebeaten track of woman's daily life, then her confidence forsook her; thenshe needed a confidant, an adviser; and by that confidant or adviser shecould be credulously lured or submissively controlled. Therefore, whenshe lost, in Mr. Vigors, the guide she had been accustomed to consultwhenever she needed guidance, she turned; helplessly and piteously, firstto Mrs. Poyntz, and then yet more imploringly to me, because a woman ofthat character is never quite satisfied without the advice of a man; andwhere an intimacy more familiar than that of his formal visits is onceestablished with a physician, confidence in him grows fearless and rapid, as the natural result of sympathy concentrated on an object of anxiety incommon between himself and the home which opens its sacred recess to hisobservant but tender eye. Thus Mrs. Ashleigh had shown me Mr. Vigors'sletter, and, forgetting that I might not be as amiable as herself, besought me to counsel her how to conciliate and soften her losthusband's friend and connection. That character clothed him with dignityand awe in her soft forgiving eyes. So, smothering my own resentment, less perhaps at the tone of offensive insinuation against myself than atthe arrogance with which this prejudiced intermeddler implied to a motherthe necessity of his guardian watch over a child under her own care, Isketched a reply which seemed to me both dignified and placatory, abstaining from all discussion, and conveying the assurance that Mrs. Ashleigh would be at all times glad to hear, and disposed to respect, whatever suggestion so esteemed a friend of her husband would kindlysubmit to her for the welfare of her daughter. 

There all communication had stopped for about a month since the date of myreintroduction to Abbots' House. One afternoon I unexpectedly met Mr. Vigors at the entrance of the blind lane, I on my way to Abbots' House, and my first glance at his face told me that he was coming from it, forthe expression of that face was more than usually sinister; the sullenscowl was lit into significant menace by a sneer of unmistakable triumph. I felt at once that he had succeeded in some machination against me, andwith ominous misgivings quickened my steps. 

I found Mrs. Ashleigh seated alone in front of the house, under a largecedar-tree that formed a natural arbour in the centre of the sunny lawn. She was perceptibly embarrassed as I took my seat beside her. 

"I hope, " said I, forcing a smile, "that Mr. Vigors has not been tellingyou that I shall kill my patient, or that she looks much worse than shedid under Dr. Jones's care?"

"No, " she said. "He owned cheerfully that Lilian had grown quite strong, and said, without any displeasure, that he had heard how gay she had been, riding out and even dancing, --which is very kind in him, for hedisapproves of dancing, on principle. "

"But still I can see he has said something to vex or annoy you; and, tojudge by his countenance when I met him in the lane, I should conjecturethat that something was intended to lower the confidence you so kindlyrepose in me. "

"I assure you not; he did not mention your name, either to me or toLilian. I never knew him more friendly; quite like old times. He is agood man at heart, very, and was much attached to my poor husband. "

"Did Mr. Ashleigh profess a very high opinion of Mr. Vigors?"

"Well, I don't quite know that, because my dear Gilbert never spoke to memuch about him. Gilbert was naturally very silent. But he shrank fromall trouble--all worldly affairs--and Mr. Vigors managed his estate, andinspected his steward's books, and protected him through a long lawsuitwhich he had inherited from his father. It killed his father. I don'tknow what we should have done without Mr. Vigors, and I am so glad he hasforgiven me. "

"Hem! Where is Miss Ashleigh? Indoors?"

"No; somewhere in the grounds. But, my dear Dr. Fenwick, do not leave meyet; you are so very, very kind, and somehow I have grown to look upon youquite as an old friend. Something has happened which has put me out, quite put me out. "

She said this wearily and feebly, closing her eyes as if she were indeedput out in the sense of extinguished. 

"The feeling of friendship you express, " said I, with earnestness, "isreciprocal. On my side it is accompanied by a peculiar gratitude. I am alonely man, by a lonely fireside, no parents, no near kindred, and in thistown, since Dr. Faber left it, without cordial intimacy till I knew you. In admitting me so familiarly to your hearth, you have given me what Ihave never known before since I came to man's estate, --a glimpse of thehappy domestic life; the charm and relief to eye, heart, and spirit whichis never known but in households cheered by the face of woman. Thus mysentiment for you and yours is indeed that of an old friend; and in anyprivate confidence you show me, I feel as if I were no longer a lonelyman, without kindred, without home. "

Mrs. Ashleigh seemed much moved by these words, which my heart had forcedfrom my lips; and, after replying to me with simple unaffected warmth ofkindness, she rose, took my arm, and continued thus as we walked slowly toand fro the lawn: "You know, perhaps, that my poor husband left a sister, now a widow like myself, Lady Haughton. "

"I remember that Mrs. Poyntz said you had such a sister-in-law, but Inever heard you mention Lady Haughton till now. Well!"

"Well, Mr. Vigors has brought me a letter from her, and it is that whichhas put me out. I dare say you have not heard me speak before of LadyHaughton, for I am ashamed to say I had almost forgotten her existence. She is many years older than my husband was; of a very differentcharacter. Only came once to see him after our marriage. Hurt me byridiculing him as a bookworm; offended him by looking a little down on me, as a nobody without spirit and fashion, which was quite true. And, exceptby a cold and unfeeling letter of formal condolence after I lost my dearGilbert, I have never heard from her since I have been a widow, tillto-day. But, after all, she is my poor husband's sister, and his eldestsister, and Lilian's aunt; and, as Mr. Vigors says, 'Duty is duty. '"

Had Mrs. Ashleigh said "Duty is torture, " she could not have uttered themaxim with more mournful and despondent resignation. 

"And what does this lady require of you, which Mr. Vigors deems it yourduty to comply with?"

"Dear me! What penetration! You have guessed the exact truth. But Ithink you will agree with Mr. Vigors. Certainly I have no option; yes, Imust do it. "

"My penetration is in fault now. Do what? Pray explain. "

"Poor Lady Haughton, six months ago, lost her only son, Sir James. Mr. Vigors says he was a very fine young man, of whom any mother would havebeen proud. I had heard he was wild; Mr. Vigors says, however, that hewas just going to reform, and marry a young lady whom his mother chose forhim, when, unluckily, he would ride a steeplechase, not being quite soberat the time, and broke his neck. Lady Haughton has been, of course, ingreat grief. She has retired to Brighton; and she wrote to me fromthence, and Mr. Vigors brought the letter. He will go back to herto-day. "

"Will go back to Lady Haughton? What! Has he been to her? Is he, then, as intimate with Lady Haughton as he was with her brother?"

"No; but there has been a long and constant correspondence. She had asettlement on the Kirby Estate, --a sum which was not paid off duringGilbert's life; and a very small part of the property went to Sir James, which part Mr. Ashleigh Sumner, the heir-at-law to the rest of the estate, wished Mr. Vigors, as his guardian, to buy during his minority, and as itwas mixed up with Lady Haughton's settlement her consent was necessary aswell as Sir James's. So there was much negotiation, and, since then, Ashleigh Sumner has come into the Haughton property, on poor Sir James'sdecease; so that complicated all affairs between Mr. Vigors and LadyHaughton, and he has just been to Brighton to see her. And poor LadyHaughton, in short, wants me and Lilian to go and visit her. I don't likeit at all. But you said the other day you thought sea air might be goodfor Lilian during the heat of the summer, and she seems well enoughnow for the change. What do you think?"

"She is well enough, certainly. But Brighton is not the place I wouldrecommend for the summer; it wants shade, and is much hotter than L----"

"Yes; but unluckily Lady Haughton foresaw that objection, and she has ajointure-house some miles from Brighton, and near the sea. She says thegrounds are well wooded, and the place is proverbially cool and healthy, not far from St. Leonard's Forest. And, in short, I have written to saywe will come. So we must, unless, indeed, you positively forbid it. "

"When do you think of going?"

"Next Monday. Mr. Vigors would make me fix the day. If you knew how Idislike moving when I am once settled; and I do so dread Lady Haughton, she is so fine, and so satirical! But Mr. Vigors says she is very muchaltered, poor thing! I should like to show you her letter, but I bad justsent it to Margaret--Mrs. Poyntz--a minute or two before you came. Sheknows something of Lady Haughton. Margaret knows everybody. And we shallhave to go in mourning for poor Sir James, I suppose; and Margaret willchoose it, for I am sure I can't guess to what extent we should besupposed to mourn. I ought to have gone in mourning before--poorGilbert's nephew--but I am so stupid, and I had never seen him. And--Butoh, this is kind! Margaret herself, --my dear Margaret!"

We had just turned away from the house, in our up-and-down walk; and Mrs. Poyntz stood immediately fronting us. "So, Anne, you have actuallyaccepted this invitation--and for Monday next?"

"Yes. Did I do wrong?"

"What does Dr. Fenwick say? Can Lilian go with safety?"

I could not honestly say she might not go with safety, but my heart sanklike lead as I answered, --

"Miss Ashleigh does not now need merely medical care; but more than halfher cure has depended on keeping her spirits free from depression. Shemay miss the cheerful companionship of your daughter, and other youngladies of her own age. A very melancholy house, saddened by a recentbereavement, without other guests; a hostess to whom she is a stranger, and whom Mrs. Ashleigh herself appears to deem formidable, --certainlythese do not make that change of scene which a physician would recommend. When I spoke of sea air being good for Miss Ashleigh, I thought of our ownnorthern coasts at a later time of the year, when I could escape myselffor a few weeks and attend her. The journey to a northern watering-placewould be also shorter and less fatiguing; the air there moreinvigorating. "

"No doubt that would be better, " said Mrs. Poyntz, dryly; "but so far asyour objections to visiting Lady Haughton have been stated, they aregroundless. Her house will not be melancholy; she will have other guests, and Lilian will find companions, young like herself, --young ladies--andyoung gentlemen too!"

There was something ominous, something compassionate, in the look whichMrs. Poyntz cast upon me, in concluding her speech, which in itself wascalculated to rouse the fears of a lover. Lilian away from me, in thehouse of a worldly-fine lady--such as I judged Lady Haughton tobe--surrounded by young gentlemen, as well as young ladies, by admirers, no doubt, of a higher rank and more brilliant fashion than she had yetknown! I closed my eyes, and with strong effort suppressed a groan. 

"My dear Annie, let me satisfy myself that Dr. Fenwick really does consentto this journey. He will say to me what he may not to you. Pardon me, then, if I take him aside for a few minutes. Let me find you here againunder this cedar-tree. "

Placing her arm in mine, and without waiting for Mrs. Ashleigh's answer, Mrs. Poyntz drew me into the more sequestered walk that belted the lawn;and when we were out of Mrs. Ashleigh's sight and hearing, said, --

"From what you have now seen of Lilian Ashleigh, do you still desire togain her as your wife?"

"Still? Ob, with an intensity proportioned to the fear with which I nowdread that she is about to pass away from my eyes--from my life!"

"Does your judgment confirm the choice of your heart? Reflect before youanswer. "

"Such selfish judgment as I had before I knew her would not confirm butoppose it. The nobler judgment that now expands all my reasonings, approves and seconds my heart. No, no; do not smile so sarcastically. This is not the voice of a blind and egotistical passion. Let me explainmyself if I can. I concede to you that Lilian's character is undeveloped;I concede to you, that amidst the childlike freshness and innocence of hernature, there is at times a strangeness, a mystery, which I have not yettraced to its cause. But I am certain that the intellect is organicallyas sound as the heart, and that intellect and heart will ultimately--ifunder happy auspices--blend in that felicitous union which constitutes theperfection of woman. But it is because she does, and may for years, mayperhaps always, need a more devoted, thoughtful care than natures lesstremulously sensitive, that my judgment sanctions my choice; for whateveris best for her is best for me. And who would watch over her as Ishould?"

"You have never yet spoken to Lilian as lovers speak?"

"Oh, no, indeed. "

"And, nevertheless, you believe that your affection would not beunreturned?"

"I thought so once; I doubt now, --yet, in doubting, hope. But why do youalarm me with these questions? You, too, forebode that in this visit Imay lose her forever?"

"If you fear that, tell her so, and perhaps her answer may dispel yourfear. "

"What! now, already, when she has scarcely known me a month. Might I notrisk all if too premature?"

"There is no almanac for love. With many women love is born the momentthey know they are beloved. All wisdom tells us that a moment once goneis irrevocable. Were I in your place, I should feel that I approached amoment that I must not lose. I have said enough; now I shall rejoin Mrs. Ashleigh. "

"Stay--tell me first what Lady Haughton's letter really contains to promptthe advice with which you so transport, and yet so daunt, me when youproffer it. "

"Not now; later, perhaps, --not now. If you wish to see Lilian alone, sheis by the Old Monk's Well; I saw her seated there as I passed that way tothe house. "

"One word more, --only one. Answer this question frankly, for it is one ofhonour. Do you still believe that my suit to her daughter would not bedisapproved of by Mrs. Ashleigh?"

"At this moment I am sure it would not; a week hence I might not give youthe same answer. "

So she passed on with her quick but measured tread, back through the shadywalk, on to the open lawn, till the last glimpse of her pale gray robedisappeared under the boughs of the cedar-tree. Then, with a start, Ibroke the irresolute, tremulous suspense in which I had vainly endeavouredto analyze my own mind, solve my own doubts, concentrate my own will, andwent the opposite way, skirting the circle of that haunted ground, --asnow, on one side its lofty terrace, the houses of the neighbouring citycame full and close into view, divided from my fairy-land of life but bythe trodden murmurous thoroughfare winding low beneath the ivied parapets;and as now, again, the world of men abruptly vanished behind the screeningfoliage of luxuriant June. 

At last the enchanted glade opened out from the verdure, its bordersfragrant with syringa and rose and woodbine; and there, by the graymemorial of the gone Gothic age, my eyes seemed to close their unquietwanderings, resting spell-bound on that image which had become to me theincarnation of earth's bloom and youth. 

She stood amidst the Past, backed by the fragments of walls which man hadraised to seclude him from human passion, locking, under those lids sodowncast, the secret of the only knowledge I asked from the boundlessFuture. 

Ah! what mockery there is in that grand word, the world's fiercewar-cry, --Freedom! Who has not known one period of life, and that sosolemn that its shadows may rest over all life hereafter, when one humancreature has over him a sovereignty more supreme and absolute than Orientservitude adores in the symbols of diadem and sceptre? What crest sohaughty that has not bowed before a hand which could exalt or humble!What heart so dauntless that has not trembled to call forth the voice atwhose sound open the gates of rapture or despair! That life alone is freewhich rules, and suffices for itself. That life we forfeit when we love!

CHAPTER XVII. 

How did I utter it? By what words did my heart make itself known? Iremember not. All was as a dream that falls upon a restless, feverishnight, and fades away as the eyes unclose on the peace of a cloudlessheaven, on the bliss of a golden sun. A new morrow seemed indeed upon theearth when I woke from a life-long yesterday, --her dear hand in mine, hersweet face bowed upon my breast. 

And then there was that melodious silence in which there is no soundaudible from without; yet within us there is heard a lulling celestialmusic, as if our whole being, grown harmonious with the universe, joinedfrom its happy deeps in the hymn that unites the stars. 

In that silence our two hearts seemed to make each other understood, to bedrawing nearer and nearer, blending by mysterious concord into thecompleteness of a solemn union, never henceforth to be rentasunder. 

At length I said softly: "And it was here on this spot that I first sawyou, --here that I for the first time knew what power to change our worldand to rule our future goes forth from the charm of a human face!"

Then Lilian asked me timidly, and without lifting her eyes, how I had soseen her, reminding me that I promised to tell her, and had never yet doneso. 

And then I told her of the strange impulse that bad led me into thegrounds, and by what chance my steps had been diverted down the path thatwound to the glade; how suddenly her form had shone upon my eyes, gathering round itself the rose hues of the setting sun, and how wistfullythose eyes had followed her own silent gaze into the distant heaven. 

As I spoke, her hand pressed mine eagerly, convulsively, and, raising herface from my breast, she looked at me with an intent, anxious earnestness. That look!--twice before it had thrilled and perplexed me. 

"What is there in that look, oh, my Lilian, which tells me that there issomething that startles you, --something you wish to confide, and yetshrink from explaining? See how, already, I study the fair book fromwhich the seal has been lifted! but as yet you must aid me to construe itslanguage. "

"If I shrink from explaining, it is only because I fear that I cannotexplain so as to be understood or believed. But you have a right to knowthe secrets of a life which you would link to your own. Turn your faceaside from me; a reproving look, an incredulous smile, chill--oh, youcannot guess how they chill me, when I would approach that which to me isso serious and so solemnly strange. "

I turned my face away, and her voice grew firmer as, after a brief pause, she resumed, --

"As far back as I can remember in my infancy, there have been moments whenthere seems to fall a soft hazy veil between my sight and the thingsaround it, thickening and deepening till it has the likeness of one ofthose white fleecy clouds which gather on the verge of the horizon whenthe air is yet still, but the winds are about to rise; and then thisvapour or veil will suddenly open, as clouds open, and let in the bluesky. "

"Go on, " I said gently, for here she came to a stop. She continued, speaking somewhat more hurriedly, --

"Then, in that opening, strange appearances present them selves to me, asin a vision. In my childhood these were chiefly landscapes of wonderfulbeauty. I could but faintly describe them then; I could not attempt todescribe them now, for they are almost gone from my memory. My dearmother chid me for telling her what I saw, so I did not impress it on mymind by repeating it. As I grew up, this kind of vision--if I may so callit--became much less frequent, or much less distinct; I still saw the softveil fall, the pale cloud form and open, but often what may then haveappeared was entirely forgotten when I recovered myself, waking as from asleep. Sometimes, however, the recollection would be vivid and complete;sometimes I saw the face of my lost father; sometimes I heard his veryvoice, as I had seen and heard him in my early childhood, when he wouldlet me rest for hours beside him as he mused or studied, happy to be soquietly near him, for I loved him, oh, so dearly! and I remember him sodistinctly, though I was only in my sixth year when he died. Much morerecently--indeed, within the last few months--the images of things to comeare reflected on the space that I gaze into as clearly as in a glass. Thus, for weeks before I came hither, or knew that such a place existed, Isaw distinctly the old House, yon trees, this sward, this moss-grownGothic fount; and, with the sight, an impression was conveyed to me thatin the scene before me my old childlike life would pass into some solemnchange. So that when I came here, and recognized the picture in myvision, I took an affection for the spot, --an affection not without awe, apowerful, perplexing interest, as one who feels under the influence of afate of which a prophetic glimpse has been vouchsafed. And in thatevening, when you first saw me, seated here--"

"Yes, Lilian, on that evening--"

"I saw you also, but in my vision--yonder, far in the deeps ofspace, --and--and my heart was stirred as it had never been before; andnear where your image grew out from the cloud I saw my father's face, andI heard his voice, not in my ear, but as in my heart, whispering--"

"Yes, Lilian--whispering--what?"

"These words, --only these, --'Ye will need one another. ' But then, suddenly, between my upward eyes and the two forms they had beheld, thererose from the earth, obscuring the skies, a vague, dusky vapour, undulous, and coiling like a vast serpent, --nothing, indeed, of its shape andfigure definite, but of its face one abrupt glare; a flash from two dreadluminous eyes, and a young head, like the Medusa's, changing, more rapidlythan I could have drawn breath, into a grinning skull. Then my terrormade me bow my head, and when I raised it again, all that I had seen wasvanished. But the terror still remained, even when I felt my mother's armround me and heard her voice. And then, when I entered the house, and satdown again alone, the recollection of what I had seen--those eyes, thatface, that skull--grew on me stronger and stronger till I fainted, andremember no more, until my eyes, opening, saw you by my side, and in mywonder there was not terror. No, a sense of joy, protection, hope, yetstill shadowed by a kind of fear or awe, in recognizing the countenancewhich had gleamed on me from the skies before the dark vapour had risen, and while my father's voice had murmured, 'Ye will need one another. ' Andnow--and now--will you love me less that you know a secret in my beingwhich I have told to no other, --cannot construe to myself? Only--only, at least, do not mock me; do not disbelieve me! Nay, turn from me nolonger now: now I ask to meet your eyes. Now, before our hands can joinagain, tell me that you do not despise me as untruthful, do not pity me asinsane. "

"Hush, hush!" I said, drawing her to my breast. "Of all you tell me wewill talk hereafter. The scales of our science have no weights fineenough for the gossamer threads of a maiden's pure fancies. Enough forme--for us both--if out from all such illusions start one truth, told toyou, lovely child, from the heavens; told to me, ruder man, on the earth;repeated by each pulse of this heart that woos you to hear and totrust, --now and henceforth through life unto death, 'Each has need of theother, '--I of you, I of you! my Lilian! my Lilian!"

CHAPTER XVIII. 

In spite of the previous assurance of Mrs. Poyntz, it was not without anuneasy apprehension that I approached the cedar-tree, under which Mrs. Ashleigh still sat, her friend beside her. I looked on the fair creaturewhose arm was linked in mine. So young, so singularly lovely, and withall the gifts of birth and fortune which bend avarice and ambition themore submissively to youth and beauty, I felt as if I had wronged what aparent might justly deem her natural lot. 

"Oh, if your mother should disapprove!" said I, falteringly. Lilianleaned on my arm less lightly. "If I had thought so, " she said with hersoft blush, "should I be thus by your side?"

So we passed under the boughs of the dark tree, and Lilian left me andkissed Mrs. Ashleigh's cheek; then, seating herself on the turf, laid herhead on her mother's lap. I looked on the Queen of the Hill, whose keeneye shot over me. I thought there was a momentary expression of pain ordispleasure on her countenance; but it passed. Still there seemed to mesomething of irony, as well as of triumph or congratulation, in thehalf-smile with which she quitted her seat, and in the tone with which shewhispered, as she glided by me to the open sward, "So, then, it issettled. "

She walked lightly and quickly down the lawn. When she was out of sight Ibreathed more freely. I took the seat which she had left, by Mrs. Ashleigh's side, and said, "A little while ago I spoke of myself as a manwithout kindred, without home, and now I come to you and ask for both. "

Mrs. Ashleigh looked at me benignly, then raised her daughter's face fromher lap, and whispered, "Lilian;" and Lilian's lips moved, but I did nothear her answer. Her mother did. She took Lilian's hand, simply placedit in mine, and said, "As she chooses, I choose; whom she loves, I love. "

CHAPTER XIX. 

From that evening till the day Mrs. Ashleigh and Lilian went on thedreaded visit, I was always at their house, when my avocations allowed meto steal to it; and during those few days, the happiest I had ever known, it seemed to me that years could not have more deepened my intimacy withLilian's exquisite nature, made me more reverential of its purity, or moreenamoured of its sweetness. I could detect in her but one fault, and Irebuked myself for believing that it was a fault. We see many who neglectthe minor duties of life, who lack watchful forethought and consideratecare for others, and we recognize the cause of this failing in levity oregotism. Certainly, neither of those tendencies of character could beascribed to Lilian. Yet still in daily trifles there was something ofthat neglect, some lack of that care and forethought. She loved hermother with fondness and devotion, yet it never occurred to her to aid inthose petty household cares in which her mother centred so much ofhabitual interest. She was full of tenderness and pity to all want andsuffering, yet many a young lady on the Hill was more activelybeneficent, --visiting the poor in their sickness, or instructing theirchildren in the Infant Schools. I was persuaded that her love for me wasdeep and truthful; it was clearly void of all ambition; doubtless shewould have borne, unflinching and contented, whatever the world considersto be a sacrifice and privation, --yet I should never have expected her totake her share in the troubles of ordinary life. I could never haveapplied to her the homely but significant name of helpmate. I reproachmyself while I write for noticing such defect--if defect it were--in whatmay be called the practical routine of our positive, trivial, humanexistence. No doubt it was this that had caused Mrs. Poyntz's harshjudgment against the wisdom of my choice. But such chiller shade uponLilian's charming nature was reflected from no inert, unamiable self-love. It was but the consequence of that self-absorption which the habit ofrevery had fostered. I cautiously abstained from all allusion to thosevisionary deceptions, which she had confided to me as the truthfulimpressions of spirit, if not of sense. To me any approach to what Itermed "superstition" was displeasing; any indulgence of fantasies notwithin the measured and beaten track of healthful imagination more thandispleased me in her, --it alarmed. I would not by a word encourage her inpersuasions which I felt it would be at present premature to reasonagainst, and cruel indeed to ridicule. I was convinced that ofthemselves these mists round her native intelligence, engendered by asolitary and musing childhood, would subside in the fuller daylight ofwedded life. She seemed pained when she saw how resolutely I shunned asubject dear to her thoughts. She made one or two timid attempts to renewit, but my grave looks sufficed to check her. Once or twice indeed, onsuch occasions, she would turn away and leave me, but she soon came back;that gentle heart could not bear one unkindlier shade between itself andwhat it loved. It was agreed that our engagement should be, for thepresent, confided only to Mrs. Poyntz. When Mrs. Ashleigh and Lilianreturned, which would be in a few weeks at furthest, it should beproclaimed; and our marriage could take place in the autumn, when I shouldbe most free for a brief holiday from professional toils. 

So we parted-as lovers part. I felt none of those jealous fears which, before we were affianced, had made me tremble at the thought ofseparation, and had conjured up irresistible rivals. But it was with asettled, heavy gloom that I saw her depart. From earth was gone a glory;from life a blessing. 

CHAPTER XX. 

During the busy years of my professional career, I had snatched leisurefor some professional treatises, which had made more or less sensation, and one of them, entitled "The Vital Principle; its Waste and Supply, " hadgained a wide circulation among the general public. This last treatisecontained the results of certain experiments, then new in chemistry, whichwere adduced in support of a theory I entertained as to there-invigoration of the human system by principles similar to those whichLiebig has applied to the replenishment of an exhausted soil, --namely, thegiving back to the frame those essentials to its nutrition, which it haslost by the action or accident of time; or supplying that special pabulumor energy in which the individual organism is constitutionally deficient;and neutralizing or counterbalancing that in which it super-abounds, --atheory upon which some eminent physicians have more recently improved withsignal success. But on these essays, slight and suggestive, rather thandogmatic, I set no value. I had been for the last two years engaged on awork of much wider range, endeared to me by a far bolder ambition, --a workupon which I fondly hoped to found an enduring reputation as a severe andoriginal physiologist. It was an Inquiry into Organic Life, similar incomprehensiveness of survey to that by which the illustrious Muller, ofBerlin, has enriched the science of our age; however inferior, alas! tothat august combination of thought and learning in the judgment whichchecks presumption, and the genius which adorns speculation. But at thatday I was carried away by the ardour of composition, and I admired myperformance because I loved my labour. This work had been entirely laidaside for the last agitated month; now that Lilian was gone, I resumed itearnestly, as the sole occupation that had power and charm enough to rouseme from the aching sense of void and loss. 

The very night of the day she went, I reopened my manuscript. I had leftoff at the commencement of a chapter Upon Knowledge as derived from ourSenses. As my convictions on this head were founded on the well-knownarguments of Locke and Condillac against innate ideas, and on thereasonings by which Hume has resolved the combination of sensations into ageneral idea to an impulse arising merely out of habit, so I set myself tooppose, as a dangerous concession to the sentimentalities or mysticism ofa pseudo-philosophy, the doctrine favoured by most of our recentphysiologists, and of which some of the most eminent of Germanmetaphysicians have accepted the substance, though refining into asubtlety its positive form, --I mean the doctrine which Muller himself hasexpressed in these words:--

 "That innate ideas may exist cannot in the slightest degree be denied: it is, indeed, a fact. All the ideas of animals, which are induced by instinct, are innate and immediate: something presented to the mind, a desire to attain which is at the same time given. The new-born lamb and foal have such innate ideas, which lead them to follow their mother and suck the teats. Is it not in some measure the same with the intellectual ideas of man?"[1]

To this question I answered with an indignant "No!" A "Yes" would haveshaken my creed of materialism to the dust. I wrote on rapidly, warmly. I defined the properties and meted the limits of natural laws, which Iwould not admit that a Deity himself could alter. I clamped and soldereddogma to dogma in the links of my tinkered logic, till out from my page, to my own complacent eye, grew Intellectual Man, as the pure formation ofhis material senses; mind, or what is called soul, born from and nurturedby them alone; through them to act, and to perish with the machine theymoved. Strange, that at the very time my love for Lilian might havetaught me that there are mysteries in the core of the feelings which myanalysis of ideas could not solve, I should so stubbornly have opposed asunreal all that could be referred to the spiritual! Strange, that at thevery time when the thought that I might lose from this life the being Ihad known scarce a month had just before so appalled me, I should thuscomplacently sit down to prove that, according to the laws of the naturewhich my passion obeyed, I must lose for eternity the blessing I now hopedI had won to my life! But how distinctly dissimilar is man in his conductfrom man in his systems! See the poet reclined under forest boughs, conning odes to his mistress; follow him out into the world; no mistressever lived for him there![2] See the hard man of science, so austere inhis passionless problems; follow him now where the brain rests from itstoil, where the heart finds its Sabbath--what child is so tender, soyielding, and soft?

But I had proved to my own satisfaction that poet and sage are dust, andno more, when the pulse ceases to beat. And on that consolatoryconclusion my pen stopped. 

Suddenly, beside me I distinctly heard a sigh, --a compassionate, mournfulsigh. The sound was unmistakable. I started from my seat, looked round, amazed to discover no one, --no living thing! The windows were closed, thenight was still. That sigh was not the wail of the wind. But there, inthe darker angle of the room, what was that? A silvery whiteness, vaguelyshaped as a human form, receding, fading, gone! Why, I know not--for noface was visible, no form, if form it were, more distinct than thecolourless outline, --why, I know not, but I cried aloud, "Lilian!Lilian!" My voice came strangely back to my own ear; I paused, thensmiled and blushed at my folly. "So I, too, have learned what issuperstition, " I muttered to myself. "And here is an anecdote at my ownexpense (as Muller frankly tells us anecdotes of the illusions whichwould haunt his eyes, shut or open), --an anecdote I may quote when I cometo my chapter on the Cheats of the Senses and Spectral Phantasms. " Iwent on with my book, and wrote till the lights waned in the gray of thedawn. And I said then, in the triumph of my pride, as I laid myself downto rest, "I have written that which allots with precision man's place inthe region of nature; written that which will found a school, formdisciples; and race after race of those who cultivate truth through purereason shall accept my bases if they enlarge my building. " And again Iheard the sigh, but this time it caused no surprise. "Certainly, " Imurmured, "a very strange thing is the nervous system!" So I turned onmy pillow, and, wearied out, fell asleep. 

[1] Muller's "Elements of Physiology, " vol. Ii. P. 134. Translated by Dr. Baley. 

[2] Cowley, who wrote so elaborate a series of amatory poems, is said"never to have been in love but once, and then he never had resolution totell his passion. "--Johnson's "Lives of the Poets:" COWLEY. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

The next day, the last of the visiting patients to whom my forenoons weredevoted had just quitted me, when I was summoned in haste to attend thesteward of a Sir Philip Derval not residing at his family seat, which wasabout five miles from L----. It was rarely indeed that persons so farfrom the town, when of no higher rank than this applicant, asked myservices. 

But it was my principle to go wherever I was summoned; my profession wasnot gain, it was healing, to which gain was the incident, not theessential. This case the messenger reported as urgent. I went onhorseback, and rode fast; but swiftly as I cantered through the villagethat skirted the approach to Sir Philip Derval's park, the evident carebestowed on the accommodation of the cottagers forcibly struck me. I feltthat I was on the lands of a rich, intelligent, and beneficent proprietor. Entering the park, and passing before the manor-house, the contrastbetween the neglect and the decay of the absentee's stately Hall and thesmiling homes of his villagers was disconsolately mournful. 

An imposing pile, built apparently by Vanbrugh, with decorated pilasters, pompous portico, and grand perron (or double flight of stairs to theentrance), enriched with urns and statues, but discoloured, mildewed, chipped, half-hidden with unpruned creepers and ivy. Most of the windowswere closed with shutters, decaying for want of paint; in some of thecasements the panes were broken; the peacock perched on the shatteredbalustrade, that fenced a garden overgrown with weeds. The sun glaredhotly on the place, and made its ruinous condition still more painfullyapparent. I was glad when a winding in the park-road shut the house frommy sight. Suddenly I emerged through a copse of ancient yew-trees, andbefore me there gleamed, in abrupt whiteness, a building evidentlydesigned for the family mausoleum, classical in its outline, with theblind iron door niched into stone walls of massive thickness, andsurrounded by a funereal garden of roses and evergreens, fenced with aniron rail, party-gilt. 

The suddenness with which this House of the Dead came upon me heightenedalmost into pain, if not into awe, the dismal impression which the aspectof the deserted home in its neighbourhood had made. I spurred my horse, and soon arrived at the door of my patient, who lived in a fair brickhouse at the other extremity of the park. 

I found my patient, a man somewhat advanced in years, but of a robustconformation, in bed: he had been seized with a fit, which was supposed tobe apoplectic, a few hours before; but was already sensible, and out ofimmediate danger. After I had prescribed a few simple remedies, I tookaside the patient's wife, and went with her to the parlour below stairs, to make some inquiry about her husband's ordinary regimen and habits oflife. These seemed sufficiently regular; I could discover no apparentcause for the attack, which presented symptoms not familiar to myexperience. "Has your husband ever had such fits before?"

"Never!"

"Had he experienced any sudden emotion? Had he heard any unexpected news;or had anything happened to put him out?"

The woman looked much disturbed at these inquiries. I pressed them moreurgently. At last she burst into tears, and clasping my hand, said, "Oh, doctor, I ought to tell you--I sent for you on purpose--yet I fear youwill not believe me: my good man has seen a ghost!"

"A ghost!" said I, repressing a smile. "Well, tell me all, that I mayprevent the ghost coming again. "

The woman's story was prolix. Its substance was this Her husband, habitually an early riser, had left his bed that morning still earlierthan usual, to give directions about some cattle that were to be sent forsale to a neighbouring fair. An hour afterwards he had been found by ashepherd, near the mausoleum, apparently lifeless. On being removed tohis own house, he had recovered speech, and bidding all except his wifeleave the room, he then told her that on walking across the park towardsthe cattle-sheds, he had seen what appeared to him at first a pale lightby the iron door of the mausoleum. On approaching nearer, this lightchanged into the distinct and visible form of his master, Sir PhilipDerval, who was then abroad, --supposed to be in the East, where he hadresided for many years. The impression on the steward's mind was sostrong, that he called out, "Oh, Sir Philip!" when looking still moreintently, he perceived that the face was that of a corpse. As hecontinued to gaze, the apparition seemed gradually to recede, as ifvanishing into the sepulchre itself. He knew no more; he becameunconscious. It was the excess of the poor woman's alarm, on hearingthis strange tale, that made her resolve to send for me instead of theparish apothecary. She fancied so astounding a cause for her husband'sseizure could only be properly dealt with by some medical man reputed tohave more than ordinary learning; and the steward himself objected to theapothecary in the immediate neighbourhood, as more likely to annoy him bygossip than a physician from a comparative distance. 

I took care not to lose the confidence of the good wife by parading tooquickly my disbelief in the phantom her husband declared that he ad seen;but as the story itself seemed at once to decide the nature of the fit tobe epileptic, I began to tell her of similar delusions which, in myexperience, had occurred to those subjected to epilepsy, and finallysoothed her into the conviction that the apparition was clearly reducibleto natural causes. Afterwards, I led her on to talk about Sir PhilipDerval, less from any curiosity I felt about the absent proprietor thanfrom a desire to re-familiarize her own mind to his image as a living man. The steward had been in the service of Sir Philip's father, and had knownSir Philip himself from a child. He was warmly attached to his master, whom the old woman described as a man of rare benevolence and greateccentricity, which last she imputed to his studious habits. He hadsucceeded to the title and estates as a minor. For the first few yearsafter attaining his majority, be had mixed much in the world. When atDerval Court his house had been filled with gay companions, and was thescene of lavish hospitality; but the estate was not in proportion to thegrandeur of the mansion, still less to the expenditure of the owner. Hehad become greatly embarrassed; and some love disappointment (so it wasrumoured) occurring simultaneously with his pecuniary difficulties, he hadsuddenly changed his way of life, shut himself up from his old friends, lived in seclusion, taking to books and scientific pursuits, and as theold woman said vaguely and expressively, "to odd ways. " He hadgradually by an economy that, towards himself, was penurious, but whichdid not preclude much judicious generosity to others, cleared off hisdebts; and, once more rich, he had suddenly quitted the country, andtaken to a life of travel. He was now about forty-eight years old, andhad been eighteen years abroad. He wrote frequently to his steward, giving him minute and thoughtful instructions in regard to the employment, comforts, and homes of the peasantry, but peremptorily ordering him tospend no money on the grounds and mansion, stating as a reason why thelatter might be allowed to fall into decay, his intention to pull it downwhenever he returned to England. 

I stayed some time longer than my engagements well warranted at mypatient's house, not leaving till the sufferer, after a quiet sleep, hadremoved from his bed to his armchair, taken food, and seemed perfectlyrecovered from his attack. 

Riding homeward, I mused on the difference that education makes, evenpathologically, between man and man. Here was a brawny inhabitant ofrural fields, leading the healthiest of lives, not conscious of thefaculty we call imagination, stricken down almost to Death's door by hisfright at an optical illusion, explicable, if examined, by the same simplecauses which had impressed me the night before with a moment's belief in asound and a spectre, --me who, thanks to sublime education, went so quietlyto sleep a few minutes after, convinced hat no phantom, the ghostliestthat ear ever heard or eye ever saw, can be anything else but a nervousphenomenon. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

That evening I went to Mrs. Poyntz's; it was one of her ordinary"reception nights, " and I felt that she would naturally expect myattendance as "a proper attention. "

I joined a group engaged in general conversation, of which Mrs. Poyntzherself made the centre, knitting as usual, --rapidly while she talked, slowly when she listened. 

Without mentioning the visit I had paid that morning, I turned theconversation on the different country places in the neighbourhood, andthen incidentally asked, "What sort of a man is Sir Philip Derval? Is itnot strange that he should suffer so fine a place to fall into decay?"The answers I received added little to the information I had alreadyobtained. Mrs. Poyntz knew nothing of Sir Philip Derval, except as a manof large estates, whose rental had been greatly increased by a rise in thevalue of property he possessed in the town of L----, and which laycontiguous to that of her husband. Two or three of the older inhabitantsof the Hill had remembered Sir Philip in his early days, when he was gay, high-spirited, hospitable, lavish. One observed that the only person inL---- whom he had admitted to his subsequent seclusion was Dr. Lloyd, whowas then without practice, and whom he had employed as an assistant incertain chemical experiments. 

Here a gentleman struck into the conversation. He was a stranger to meand to L----, a visitor to one of the dwellers on the Hill, who had askedleave to present him to its queen as a great traveller and an accomplishedantiquary. 

 Said this gentleman: "Sir Philip Derval? I know him. I met him in theEast. He was then still, I believe, very fond of chemical science; aclever, odd, philanthropical man; had studied medicine, or at leastpractised it; was said to have made many marvellous cures. I becameacquainted with him in Aleppo. He had come to that town, not muchfrequented by English travellers, in order to inquire into the murder oftwo men, of whom one was his friend and the other his countryman. "

"This is interesting, " said Mrs. Poyntz, dryly. "We who live on thisinnocent Hill all love stories of crime; murder is the pleasantest subjectyou could have hit on. Pray give us the details. "

"So encouraged, " said the traveller, good-humouredly, "I will not hesitateto communicate the little I know. In Aleppo there had lived for someyears a man who was held by the natives in great reverence. He had thereputation of extraordinary wisdom, but was difficult of access; thelively imagination of the Orientals invested his character with thefascinations of fable, --in short, Haroun of Aleppo was popularlyconsidered a magician. Wild stories were told of his powers, of hispreternatural age, of his hoarded treasures. Apart from such disputabletitles to homage, there seemed no question, from all I heard, that hislearning was considerable, his charities extensive, his manner of lifeirreproachably ascetic. He appears to have resembled those Arabian sagesof the Gothic age to whom modern science is largely indebted, --a mysticenthusiast, but an earnest scholar. A wealthy and singular Englishman, long resident in another part of the East, afflicted by some languishingdisease, took a journey to Aleppo to consult this sage, who, among hisother acquirements, was held to have discovered rare secrets inmedicine, --his countrymen said in 'charms. ' One morning, not long afterthe Englishman's arrival, Haroun was found dead in his bed, apparentlystrangled, and the Englishman, who lodged in another part of the town, haddisappeared; but some of his clothes, and a crutch on which he habituallysupported himself, were found a few miles distant from Aleppo, near theroadside. There appeared no doubt that he, too, had been murdered, buthis corpse could not be discovered. Sir Philip Derval had been a lovingdisciple of this Sage of Aleppo, to whom he assured me he owed not onlythat knowledge of medicine which, by report, Sir Philip possessed, but theinsight into various truths of nature, on the promulgation of which, itwas evident, Sir Philip cherished the ambition to found a philosophicalcelebrity for himself. "

"Of what description were those truths of nature?" I asked, somewhatsarcastically. 

"Sir, I am unable to tell you, for Sir Philip did not inform me, nor did Imuch care to ask; for what may be revered as truths in Asia are usuallydespised as dreams in Europe. To return to my story: Sir Philip had beenin Aleppo a little time before the murder; had left the Englishman underthe care of Haroun. He returned to Aleppo on hearing the tragic events Ihave related, and was busy in collecting such evidence as could begleaned, and instituting inquiries after our missing countryman at thetime I myself chanced to arrive in the city. I assisted in hisresearches, but without avail. The assassins remained undiscovered. I donot myself doubt that they were mere vulgar robbers. Sir Philip had adarker suspicion of which he made no secret to me; but as I confess that Ithought the suspicion groundless, you will pardon me if I do not repeatit. Whether since I left the East the Englishman's remains have beendiscovered, I know not. Very probably; for I understand that his heirshave got hold of what fortune he left, --less than was generally supposed. But it was reported that he had buried great treasures, a rumour, howeverabsurd, not altogether inconsistent with his character. "

"What was his character?" asked Mrs. Poyntz. 

"One of evil and sinister repute. He was regarded with terror by theattendants who had accompanied him to Aleppo. But he had lived in a veryremote part of the East, little known to Europeans, and, from all I couldlearn, had there established an extraordinary power, strengthened bysuperstitious awe. He was said to have studied deeply that knowledgewhich the philosophers of old called 'occult, ' not, like the Sage ofAleppo, for benevolent, but for malignant ends. He was accused ofconferring with evil spirits, and filling his barbaric court (for he livedin a kind of savage royalty) with charmers and sorcerers. I suspect, after all, that he was only, like myself, an ardent antiquary, andcunningly made use of the fear he inspired in order to secure hisauthority, and prosecute in safety researches into ancient sepulchres ortemples. His great passion was, indeed, in excavating such remains, inhis neighbourhood; with what result I know not, never having penetratedso far into regions infested by robbers and pestiferous with malaria. Hewore the Eastern dress, and always carried jewels about him. I came tothe conclusion that for the sake of these jewels he was murdered, perhapsby some of his own servants (and, indeed, two at least of his suite weremissing), who then at once buried his body, and kept their own secret. Hewas old, very infirm; could never have got far from the town withoutassistance. "

"You have not yet told us his name, " said Mrs. Poyntz. 

"His name was Grayle. "

"Grayle!" exclaimed Mrs. Poyntz, dropping her work. "Louis Grayle?"

"Yes; Louis Grayle. You could not have known him?"

"Known him! No; but I have often heard my father speak of him. Such, then, was the tragic end of that strong dark creature, for whom, as ayoung girl in the nursery, I used to feel a kind of fearful admiringinterest?"

"It is your turn to narrate now, " said the traveller. 

And we all drew closer round our hostess, who remained silent somemoments, her brow thoughtful, her work suspended. 

"Well, " said she at last, looking round us with a lofty air, which seemedhalf defying, "force and courage are always fascinating, even when theyare quite in the wrong. I go with the world, because the world goes withme; if it did not--" Here she stopped for a moment, clenched the firmwhite hand, and then scornfully waved it, left the sentence unfinished, and broke into another. 

"Going with the world, of course we must march over those who standagainst it. But when one man stands single-handed against our march, wedo not despise him; it is enough to crush. I am very glad I did not seeLouis Grayle when I was a girl of sixteen. " Again she paused a moment, and resumed: "Louis Grayle was the only son of a usurer, infamous for therapacity with which he had acquired enormous wealth. Old Grayle desiredto rear his heir as a gentleman; sent him to Eton. Boys are alwaysaristocratic; his birth was soon thrown in his teeth; he was fierce; hestruck boys bigger than himself, --fought till he was half killed. Myfather was at school with him; described him as a tiger-whelp. One dayhe--still a fag--struck a sixth-form boy. Sixth-form boys do not fightfags; they punish them. Louis Grayle was ordered to hold out his hand tothe cane; he received the blow, drew forth his schoolboy knife, andstabbed the punisher. After that, he left Eton. I don't think he waspublicly expelled--too mere a child for that honour--but he was taken orsent away; educated with great care under the first masters at home. Whenhe was of age to enter the University, old Grayle was dead. Louis wassent by his guardians to Cambridge, with acquirements far exceeding theaverage of young men, and with unlimited command of money. My father wasat the same college, and described him again, --haughty, quarrelsome, reckless, handsome, aspiring, brave. Does that kind of creature interestyou, my dears?" (appealing to the ladies). 

"La!" said Miss Brabazon; "a horrid usurer's son!"

"Ay, true; the vulgar proverb says it is good to be born with a silverspoon in one's mouth: so it is when one has one's own family crest on it;ut when it is a spoon on which people recognize their family crest, andcry out, 'Stolen from our plate chest, ' it is a heritage that outlaws ababe in his cradle. However, young men at college who want money are lessscrupulous about descent than boys at Eton are. Louis Grayle found, whileat college, plenty of wellborn acquaintances willing to recover from himsome of the plunder his father had extorted from theirs. He was too wildto distinguish himself by academical honours, but my father said that thetutors of the college declared there were not six undergraduates in theUniversity who knew as much hard and dry science as wild Louis Grayle. Hewent into the world, no doubt, hoping to shine; but his father's name wastoo notorious to admit the son into good society. The Polite World, itis true, does not examine a scutcheon with the nice eye of a herald, norlook upon riches with the stately contempt of a stoic; still the PoliteWorld has its family pride and its moral sentiment. It does not like tobe cheated, --I mean, in money matters; and when the son of a man who hasemptied its purse and foreclosed on its acres rides by its club-windows, hand on haunch, and head in the air, no lion has a scowl more awful, nohyena a laugh more dread, than that same easy, good-tempered, tolerant, polite, well-bred World which is so pleasant an acquaintance, so languida friend, and--so remorseless an--enemy. In short, Louis Grayle claimedthe right to be courted, --he was shunned; to be admired, --he was loathed. Even his old college acquaintances were shamed out of knowing him. Perhaps he could have lived through all this had he sought to glidequietly into position; but he wanted the tact of the well-bred, andstrove to storm his way, not to steal it. Reduced for companions toneedy parasites, he braved and he shocked all decorous opinion by thatostentation of excess, which made Richelieus and Lauzuns the rage. Butthen Richelieus and Lauzuns were dukes! He now very naturally took thePolite World into hate, --gave it scorn for scorn. He would ally himselfwith Democracy; his wealth could not get him into a club, but it would buyhim into parliament; he could not be a Lauzun, nor, perhaps, a Mirabeau, but he might be a Danton. He had plenty of knowledge and audacity, andwith knowledge and audacity a good hater is sure to be eloquent. Possibly, then, this poor Louis Grayle might have made a great figure, left his mark on his age and his name in history; but in contesting theborough, which he was sure to carry, he had to face an opponent in a realfine gentleman whom his father had ruined, cool and highbred, with atongue like a rapier, a sneer like an adder. A quarrel of course; LouisGrayle sent a challenge. The fine gentleman, known to be no coward (finegentlemen never are), was at first disposed to refuse with contempt. ButGrayle had made himself the idol of the mob; and at a word from Grayle, the fine gentleman might have been ducked at a pump, or tossed in ablanket, --that would have made him ridiculous; to be shot at is a trifle, to be laughed at is serious. He therefore condescended to accept thechallenge, and my father was his second. 

"It was settled, of course, according to English custom, that bothcombatants should fire at the same time, and by signal. The antagonistfired at the right moment; his ball grazed Louis Grayle's temple. LouisGrayle had not fired. He now seemed to the seconds to take slow anddeliberate aim. They called out to him not to fire; they were rushing toprevent him, when the trigger was pulled, and his opponent fell dead onthe field. The fight was, therefore, considered unfair; Louis Grayle wastried for his life: he did not stand the trial in person. [1] He escapedto the Continent; hurried on to some distant uncivilized lands; could notbe traced; reappeared in England no more. The lawyer who conducted hisdefence pleaded skilfully. He argued that the delay in firing was notintentional, therefore not criminal, --the effect of the stun which thewound in the temple had occasioned. The judge was a gentleman, and summedup the evidence so as to direct the jury to a verdict against the lowwretch who had murdered a gentleman; but the jurors were not gentlemen, and Grayle's advocate had of course excited their sympathy for a son ofthe people, whom a gentleman had wantonly insulted. The verdict wasmanslaughter; but the sentence emphatically marked the aggravated natureof the homicide, --three years' imprisonment. Grayle eluded the prison, but he was a man disgraced and an exile, --his ambition blasted, his careeran outlaw's, and his age not yet twenty-three. My father said that he wassupposed to have changed his name; none knew what had become of him. Andso this creature, brilliant and daring, whom if born under better auspiceswe might now be all fawning on, cringing to, --after living to old age, noone knows how, --dies murdered at Aleppo, no one, you say, knows by whom. "

"I saw some account of his death in the papers about three years ago, "said one of the party; "but the name was misspelled, and I had no ideathat it was the same man who had fought the duel which Mrs. Colonel Poyntzhas so graphically described. I have a very vague recollection of thetrial; it took place when I was a boy, more than forty years since. Theaffair made a stir at the time, but was soon forgotten. "

"Soon forgotten, " said Mrs. Poyntz; "ay, what is not? Leave your place inthe world for ten minutes, and when you come back somebody else has takenit; but when you leave the world for good, who remembers that you had evera place even in the parish register?"

"Nevertheless, " said I, "a great poet has said, finely and truly, "'The sun of Homer shines upon us still. '"

"But it does not shine upon Homer; and learned folks tell me that we knowno more who and what Homer was, if there was ever a single Homer at all, or rather, a whole herd of Homers, than we know about the man in themoon, --if there be one man there, or millions of men. Now, my dear MissBrabazon, it will be very kind in you to divert our thoughts into channelsless gloomy. Some pretty French air--Dr. Fenwick, I have something tosay to you. " She drew me towards the window. "So Annie Ashleigh writesme word that I am not to mention your engagement. Do you think it quiteprudent to keep it a secret?"

"I do not see how prudence is concerned in keeping it secret one way orthe other, --it is a mere matter of feeling. Most people wish to abridge, as far as they can, the time in which their private arrangements are thetopic of public gossip. "

"Public gossip is sometimes the best security for the due completion ofprivate arrangements. As long as a girl is not known to be engaged, herbetrothed must be prepared for rivals. Announce the engagement, andrivals are warned off. "

"I fear no rivals. "

"Do you not? Bold man! I suppose you will write to Lilian?"

"Certainly. "

"Do so, and constantly. By-the-way, Mrs. Ashleigh, before she went, askedme to send her back Lady Haughton's letter of invitation. What for, --toshow to you?"

"Very likely. Have you the letter still? May I see it?"

"Not just at present. When Lilian or Mrs. Ashleigh writes to you, comeand tell me how they like their visit, and what other guests form theparty. "

Therewith she turned away and conversed apart with the traveller. 

Her words disquieted me, and I felt that they were meant to do so, wherefore I could not guess. But there is no language on earth which hasmore words with a double meaning than that spoken by the Clever Woman, whois never so guarded as when she appears to be frank. 

As I walked home thoughtfully, I was accosted by a young man, the son ofone of the wealthiest merchants in the town. I had attended him withsuccess some months before, in a rheumatic fever: he and his family weremuch attached to me. 

"Ah, my dear Fenwick, I am so glad to see you; I owe you an obligation ofwhich you are not aware, --an exceedingly pleasant travelling-companion. Icame with him to-day from London, where I have been sight-seeing andholidaymaking for the last fortnight. "

"I suppose you mean that you kindly bring me a patient?"

"No, only an admirer. I was staying at Fenton's Hotel. It so happenedone day that I had left in the coffee-room your last work on the VitalPrinciple, which, by the by, the bookseller assures me is sellingimmensely among readers as non-professional as myself. Coming into thecoffee-room again, I found a gentleman reading the book. I claimed itpolitely; he as politely tendered his excuse for taking it. We madeacquaintance on the spot. The next day we were intimate. He expressedgreat interest and curiosity about your theory and your experiments. Itold him I knew you. You may guess if I described you as less clever inyour practice than you are in your writings; and, in short, he came withme to L----, partly to see our flourishing town, principally on my promiseto introduce him to you. My mother, you know, has what she calls adejeuner tomorrow, --dejeuner and dance. You will be there?"

"Thank you for reminding me of her invitation. I will avail myself of itif I can. Your new friend will be present? Who and what is he, --amedical student?"

"No, a mere gentleman at ease, but seems to have a good deal of generalinformation. Very young, apparently very rich, wonderfully good-looking. I am sure you will like him; everybody must. "

"It is quite enough to prepare me to like him that he is a friend ofyours. " And so we shook hands and parted. 

[1] Mrs. Poyntz here makes a mistake in law which, though very evident, her listeners do not seem to have noticed. Her mistake will be referredto later. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

It was late in the afternoon of the following day before I was able tojoin the party assembled at the merchant's house; it was a villa about twomiles out of the town, pleasantly situated amidst flower-gardenscelebrated in the neighbourhood for their beauty. The breakfast had beenlong over; the company was scattered over the lawn, --some formed into adance on the smooth lawn; some seated under shady awnings; others glidingamidst parterres, in which all the glow of colour took a glory yet morevivid under the flush of a brilliant sunshine; and the ripple of a softwestern breeze. Music, loud and lively, mingled with the laughter ofhappy children, who formed much the larger number of the party. 

Standing at the entrance of an arched trellis, that led from the hardierflowers of the lawn to a rare collection of tropical plants under a loftyglass dome (connecting, as it were, the familiar vegetation of the Northwith that of the remotest East), was a form that instantaneously caughtand fixed my gaze. The entrance of the arcade was covered with parasitecreepers, in prodigal luxuriance, of variegated gorgeous tints, --scarlet, golden, purple; and the form, an idealized picture of man's youth freshfrom the hand of Nature, stood literally in a frame of blooms. 

Never have I seen human face so radiant as that young man's. There was inthe aspect an indescribable something that literally dazzled. As onecontinued to gaze, it was with surprise; one was forced to acknowledgethat in the features themselves there was no faultless regularity; nor wasthe young man's stature imposing, about the middle height. But the effectof the whole was not less transcendent. Large eyes, unspeakably lustrous;a most harmonious colouring; an expression of contagious animation andjoyousness; and the form itself so critically fine, that the weldedstrength of its sinews was best shown in the lightness and grace of itsmovements. 

He was resting one hand carelessly on the golden locks of a child that hadnestled itself against his knees, looking up to his face in that silentloving wonder with which children regard something too strangely beautifulfor noisy admiration; he himself was conversing with the host, an oldgray-haired, gouty man, propped on his crutched stick, and listening witha look of mournful envy. To the wealth of the old man all the flowers inthat garden owed their renewed delight in the summer air and sun. Oh, that his wealth could renew to himself one hour of the youth whoseincarnation stood beside him, Lord, indeed, of Creation; its splendourwoven into his crown of beauty, its enjoyments subject to his sceptre ofhope and gladness. 

I was startled by the hearty voice of the merchant's son. "Ah, my dearFenwick, I was afraid you would not come, --you are late. There is the newfriend of whom I spoke to you last night; let me now make you acquaintedwith him. " He drew my arm in his, and led me up to the young man, wherehe stood under the arching flowers, and whom he then introduced to me bythe name of Margrave. 

Nothing could be more frankly cordial than Mr. Margrave's manner. In afew minutes I found myself conversing with him familiarly, as if we hadbeen reared in the same home, and sported together in the same playground. His vein of talk was peculiar, off-hand, careless, shifting from topic totopic with a bright rapidity. 

He said that he liked the place; proposed to stay in it some weeks; askedmy address, which I gave to him; promised to call soon at an early hour, while my time was yet free from professional visits. I endeavoured, whenI went away, to analyze to myself the fascination which this youngstranger so notably exercised over all who approached him; and it seemedto me, ever seeking to find material causes for all moral effects, that itrose from the contagious vitality of that rarest of all rare gifts inhighly-civilized circles, --perfect health; that health which is in itselfthe most exquisite luxury; which, finding happiness in the mere sense ofexistence, diffuses round it, like an atmosphere, the harmless hilarity ofits bright animal being. Health, to the utmost perfection, is seldomknown after childhood; health to the utmost cannot be enjoyed by those whooverwork the brain, or admit the sure wear and tear of the passions. Thecreature I had just seen gave me the notion of youth in the golden age ofthe poets, --the youth of the careless Arcadian, before nymph orshepherdess had vexed his heart with a sigh. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The house I occupied at L---- was a quaint, old-fashioned building, acorner-house. One side, in which was the front entrance, looked upon astreet which, as there were no shops in it, and it was no directthoroughfare to the busy centres of the town, was always quiet, and atsome hours of the day almost deserted. The other side of the housefronted a lane; opposite to it was the long and high wall of the garden toa Young Ladies' Boarding-school. My stables adjoined the house, abuttingon a row of smaller buildings, with little gardens before them, chieflyoccupied by mercantile clerks and retired tradesmen. By the lane therewas a short and ready access both to the high turnpike-road, and to somepleasant walks through green meadows and along the banks of a river. 

This house I had inhabited since my arrival at L----, and it had to me somany attractions, in a situation sufficiently central to be convenient forpatients, and yet free from noise, and favourable to ready outlet into thecountry for such foot or horse exercise as my professional avocationswould allow me to carve for myself out of what the Latin poet calls the"solid day, " that I had refused to change it for one better suited to myincreased income; but it was not a house which Mrs. Ashleigh would haveliked for Lilian. The main objection to it in the eyes of the "genteel"was, that it had formerly belonged to a member of the healing professionwho united the shop of an apothecary to the diploma of a surgeon; but thatshop had given the house a special attraction to me; for it had been builtout on the side of the house which fronted the lane, occupying the greaterportion of a small gravel court, fenced from the road by a low ironpalisade, and separated from the body of the house itself by a short andnarrow corridor that communicated with the entrance-hall. This shop Iturned into a rude study for scientific experiments, in which I generallyspent some early hours of the morning, before my visiting patients beganto arrive. I enjoyed the stillness of its separation from the rest ofthe house; I enjoyed the glimpse of the great chestnut-trees, whichovertopped the wall of the school-garden; I enjoyed the ease with which, by opening the glazed sash-door, I could get out, if disposed for a shortwalk, into the pleasant fields; and so completely had I made thissanctuary my own, that not only my man-servant knew that I was never to bedisturbed when in it, except by the summons of a patient, but even thehousemaid was forbidden to enter it with broom or duster, except uponspecial invitation. The last thing at night, before retiring to rest, itwas the man-servant's business to see that the sash-window was closed, and the gate to the iron palisade locked; but during the daytime I sooften went out of the house by that private way that the gate was thenvery seldom locked, nor the sash-door bolted from within. In the town ofL---- there was little apprehension of house-robberies, --especially in thedaylight, --and certainly in this room, cut off from the main building, there was nothing to attract a vulgar cupidity. A few of the apothecary'sshelves and cases still remained on the walls, with, here and there, abottle of some chemical preparation for experiment; two or threeworm-eaten, wooden chairs; two or three shabby old tables; an oldwalnut-tree bureau without a lock, into which odds and ends wereconfusedly thrust, and sundry ugly-looking inventions of mechanicalscience, were, assuredly, not the articles which a timid proprietor wouldguard with jealous care from the chances of robbery. It will be seenlater why I have been thus prolix in description. The morning after I hadmet the young stranger by whom I had been so favourably impressed, I wasup as usual, a little before the sun, and long before any of my servantswere astir. I went first into the room I have mentioned, and which Ishall henceforth designate as my study, opened the window, unlocked thegate, and sauntered for some minutes up and down the silent lace skirtingthe opposite wall, and overhung by the chestnut-trees rich in thegarniture of a glorious summer; then, refreshed for work, I re-entered mystudy, and was soon absorbed in the examination of that now well-knownmachine, which was then, to me at least, a novelty, --invented, if Iremember right, by Dubois-Reymond, so distinguished by his researches intothe mysteries of organic electricity. It is a wooden cylinder fixedagainst the edge of a table; on the table two vessels filled with salt andwater are so placed that, as you close your hands on the cylinder, theforefinger of each hand can drop into the water; each of the vessels has ametallic plate, and communicates by wires with a galvanometer with itsneedle. Now the theory is, that if you clutch the cylinder firmly withthe right hand, leaving the left perfectly passive, the needle in thegalvanometer will move from west to south; if, in like manner, you exertthe left arm, leaving the right arm passive, the needle will deflect fromwest to north. Hence, it is argued that the electric current is inducedthrough the agency of the nervous system, and that, as human Will producesthe muscular contraction requisite, so is it human Will that causes thedeflection of the needle. I imagine that if this theory weresubstantiated by experiment, the discovery might lead to some sublime andunconjectured secrets of science. For human Will, thus actively effectiveon the electric current, and all matter, animate or inanimate, having moreor less of electricity, a vast field became opened to conjecture. By whatseries of patient experimental deduction might not science arrive at thesolution of problems which the Newtonian law of gravitation does notsuffice to solve; and--But here I halt. At the date which my story hasreached, my mind never lost itself long in the Cloudland of Guess. 

I was dissatisfied with my experiment. The needle stirred, indeed, buterratically, and not in directions which, according to the theory, shouldcorrespond to my movement. I was about to dismiss the trial with someuncharitable contempt of the foreign philosopher's dogmas, when I heard aloud ring at my street-door. While I paused to conjecture whether myservant was yet up to attend to the door, and which of my patients was themost likely to summon me at so unseasonable an hour, a shadow darkened mywindow. I looked up, and to my astonishment beheld the brilliant face ofMr. Margrave. The sash to the door was already partially opened; heraised it higher, and walked into the room. "Was it you who rang at thestreet-door, and at this hour?" said I. 

"Yes; and observing, after I had rung, that all the shutters were stillclosed, I felt ashamed of my own rash action, and made off rather thanbrave the reproachful face of some injured housemaid, robbed of hermorning dreams. I turned down that pretty lane, --lured by the green ofthe chestnut-trees, --caught sight of you through the window, took courage, and here I am! You forgive me?" While thus speaking, he continued tomove along the littered floor of the dingy room, with the undulatingrestlessness of some wild animal in the confines of its den, and he nowwent on, in short fragmentary sentences, very slightly linked together, but smoothed, as it were, into harmony by a voice musical and fresh as asky lark's warble. "Morning dreams, indeed! dreams that waste the lifeof such a morning. Rosy magnificence of a summer dawn! Do you not pitythe fool who prefers to lie a bed, and to dream rather than to live?What! and you, strong man, with those noble limbs, in this den! Do younot long for a rush through the green of the fields, a bath in the blue ofthe river?"

Here he came to a pause, standing, still in the gray light of the growingday, with eyes whose joyous lustre forestalled the sun's, and lips whichseemed to laugh even in repose. 

But presently those eyes, as quick as they were bright, glanced over thewalls, the floor, the shelves, the phials, the mechanical inventions, andthen rested full on my cylinder fixed to the table. He approached, examined it curiously, asked what it was. I explained. To gratify him Isat down and renewed my experiment, with equally ill success. The needle, which should have moved from west to south, describing an angle of fromthirty degrees to forty or even fifty degrees, only made a few troubled, undecided oscillations. 

"Tut, " cried the young man, "I see what it is; you have a wound in yourright hand. "

That was true; I had burned my band a few days before in a chemicalexperiment, and the sore had not healed. 

"Well, " said I, "and what does that matter?"

"Everything; the least scratch in the skin of the hand produces chemicalactions on the electric current, independently of your will. Let me try. "

He took my place, and in a moment the needle in the galvanometer respondedto his grasp on the cylinder, exactly as the inventive philosopher hadstated to be the due result of the experiment. 

I was startled. 

"But how came you, Mr. Margrave, to be so well acquainted with ascientific process little known, and but recently discovered?"

"I well acquainted! not so. But I am fond of all experiments that relateto animal life. Electricity, especially, is full of interest. "

On that I drew him out (as I thought), and he talked volubly. I wasamazed to find this young man, in whose brain I had conceived thought keptone careless holiday, was evidently familiar with the physical sciences, and especially with chemistry, which was my own study by predilection. But never had I met with a student in whom a knowledge so extensive wasmixed up with notions so obsolete or so crotchety. In one sentence heshowed that he had mastered some late discovery by Faraday or Liebig; inthe next sentence he was talking the wild fallacies of Cardan or VanHelmont. I burst out laughing at some paradox about sympathetic powders, which he enounced as if it were a recognized truth. 

"Pray tell me, " said I, "who was your master in physics; for a clevererpupil never had a more crack-brained teacher. "

"No, " he answered, with his merry laugh, "it is not the teacher's fault. I am a mere parrot; just cry out a few scraps of learning picked up hereand there. But, however, I am fond of all researches into Nature; allguesses at her riddles. To tell you the truth, one reason why I havetaken to you so heartily is not only that your published work caught myfancy in the dip which I took into its contents (pardon me if I say dip, Inever do more than dip into any book), but also because young ---- tellsme that which all whom I have met in this town confirm; namely, that youare one of those few practical chemists who are at once exceedinglycautious and exceedingly bold, --willing to try every new experiment, butsubmitting experiment to rigid tests. Well, I have an experiment runningwild in this giddy head of mine, and I want you, some day when at leisure, to catch it, fix it as you have fixed that cylinder, make something of it. I am sure you can. "

"What is it?"

"Something akin to the theories in your work. You would replenish orpreserve to each special constitution the special substance that may failto the equilibrium of its health. But you own that in a largeproportion of cases the best cure of disease is less to deal with thedisease itself than to support and stimulate the whole system, so as toenable Nature to cure the disease and restore the impaired equilibrium byher own agencies. Thus, if you find that in certain cases of nervousdebility a substance like nitric acid is efficacious, it is because thenitric acid has a virtue in locking up, as it were, the nervousenergy, --that is, preventing all undue waste. Again, in some cases ofwhat is commonly called feverish cold, stimulants like ammonia assistNature itself to get rid of the disorder that oppresses its normal action;and, on the same principle, I apprehend, it is contended that a largeaverage of human lives is saved in those hospitals which have adopted thesupporting system of ample nourishment and alcoholic stimulants. "

"Your medical learning surprises me, " said I, smiling; "and withoutpausing to notice where it deals somewhat superficially with disputablepoints in general, and my own theory in particular, I ask you for thededuction you draw from your premises. "

"It is simply this: that to all animate bodies, however various, theremust be one principle in common, --the vital principle itself. What ifthere be one certain means of recruiting that principle; and what if thatsecret can be discovered?"

"Pshaw! The old illusion of the mediaeval empirics. "

"Not so. But the mediaeval empirics were great discoverers. You sneer atVan Helmont, who sought, in water, the principle of all things; but VanHelmont discovered in his search those invisible bodies called gases. Nowthe principle of life must be certainly ascribed to a gas. [1] And whatever is a gas chemistry should not despair of producing! But I can argueno longer now, --never can argue long at a stretch; we are wasting themorning; and, joy! the sun is up! See! Out! come out! out! and greetthe great Lifegiver face to face. "

I could not resist the young man's invitation. In a few minutes we werein the quiet lane under the glinting chestnut-trees. Margrave waschanting, low, a wild tune, --words in a strange language. 

"What words are those, --no European language, I think; for I know a littleof most of the languages which are spoken in our quarter of the globe, atleast by its more civilized races. "

"Civilized race! What is civilization? Those words were uttered by menwho founded empires when Europe itself was not civilized! Hush, is it nota grand old air?" and lifting his eyes towards the sun, he gave vent to avoice clear and deep as a mighty bell! The air was grand; the words had asonorous swell that suited it, and they seemed to me jubilant and yetsolemn. He stopped abruptly as a path from the lane had led us into thefields, already half-bathed in sunlight, dews glittering on the hedgerows. 

"Your song, " said I, "would go well with the clash of cymbals or the pealof the organ. I am no judge of melody, but this strikes me as that of areligious hymn. "

"I compliment you on the guess. It is a Persian fire-worshipper's hymn tothe sun. The dialect is very different from modern Persian. Cyrus theGreat might have chanted it on his march upon Babylon. "

"And where did you learn it?"

"In Persia itself. "

"You have travelled much, learned much, --and are so young and so fresh. Is it an impertinent question if I ask whether your parents are yetliving, or are you wholly lord of yourself?"

"Thank you for the question, --pray make my answer known in the town. Parents I have not, --never had. "

"Never had parents!"

"Well, I ought rather to say that no parents ever owned me. I am anatural son, a vagabond, a nobody. When I came of age I received ananonymous letter, informing me that a sum--I need not say what, but morethan enough for all I need--was lodged at an English banker's in my name;that my mother had died in my infancy; that my father was also dead--butrecently; that as I was a child of love, and he was unwilling that thesecret of my birth should ever be traced, he had provided for me, not bywill, but in his life, by a sum consigned to the trust of the friend whonow wrote to me; I need give myself no trouble to learn more. Faith, Inever did! I am young, healthy, rich, --yes, rich! Now you know all, andyou had better tell it, that I may win no man's courtesy and no maiden'slove upon false pretences. I have not even a right, you see, to the nameI bear. Hist! let me catch that squirrel. "

With what a panther-like bound he sprang! The squirrel eluded his grasp, and was up the oak-tree; in a moment he was up the oak-tree too. Inamazement I saw him rising from bough to bough; saw his bright eyes andglittering teeth through the green leaves. Presently I heard the sharppiteous cry of the squirrel, echoed by the youth's merry laugh; and down, through that maze of green, Hargrave came, dropping on the grass andbounding up, as Mercury might have bounded with his wings at his heels. 

"I have caught him. What pretty brown eyes!"

Suddenly the gay expression of his face changed to that of a savage; thesquirrel had wrenched itself half-loose, and bitten him. The poor brute!In an instant its neck was wrung, its body dashed on the ground; and thatfair young creature, every feature quivering with rage, was stamping hisfoot on his victim again and again! It was horrible. I caught him by thearm indignantly. He turned round on me like a wild beast disturbed fromits prey, --his teeth set, his hand lifted, his eyes like balls of fire. 

"Shame!" said I, calmly; "shame on you!"

He continued to gaze on me a moment or so, his eye glaring, his breathpanting; and then, as if mastering himself with an involuntary effort, hisarm dropped to his side, and he said quite humbly, "I beg your pardon;indeed I do. I was beside myself for a moment; I cannot bear pain; "andhe looked in deep compassion for himself at his wounded hand. "Venomousbrute!" And he stamped again on the body of the squirrel, already crushedout of shape. 

I moved away in disgust, and walked on. 

But presently I felt my arm softly drawn aside, and a voice, dulcet as thecoo of a dove, stole its way into my ears. There was no resisting thecharm with which this extraordinary mortal could fascinate even the hardand the cold; nor them, perhaps, the least. For as you see in extreme oldage, when the heart seems to have shrunk into itself, and to leave butmeagre and nipped affections for the nearest relations if grown up, theindurated egotism softens at once towards a playful child; or as you seein middle life, some misanthrope, whose nature has been soured by wrongand sorrow, shrink from his own species, yet make friends with inferiorraces, and respond to the caress of a dog, --so, for the worldling or thecynic, there was an attraction in the freshness of this joyous favouriteof Nature, --an attraction like that of a beautiful child, spoilt andwayward, or of a graceful animal, half docile, half fierce. 

"But, " said I, with a smile, as I felt all displeasure gone, "suchindulgence of passion for such a trifle is surely unworthy a student ofphilosophy!"

"Trifle, " he said dolorously. "But I tell you it is pain; pain is notrifle. I suffer. Look!"

I looked at the hand, which I took in mine. The bite no doubt had beensharp; but the hand that lay in my own was that which the Greek sculptorgives to a gladiator; not large (the extremities are never large inpersons whose strength comes from the just proportion of all the members, rather than the factitious and partial force which continued muscularexertion will give to one part of the frame, to the comparative weakeningof the rest), but with the firm-knit joints, the solid fingers, thefinished nails, the massive palm, the supple polished skin, in which werecognize what Nature designs the human hand to be, --the skilled, swift, mighty doer of all those marvels which win Nature herself from thewilderness. 

"It is strange, " said I, thoughtfully; "but your susceptibility tosuffering confirms my opinion, which is different from the popularbelief, --namely, that pain is most acutely felt by those in whom theanimal organization being perfect, and the sense of vitality exquisitelykeen, every injury or lesion finds the whole system rise, as it were, torepel the mischief and communicate the consciousness of it to all thosenerves which are the sentinels to the garrison of life. Yet my theory isscarcely borne out by general fact. The Indian savages must have a healthas perfect as yours; a nervous system as fine, --witness their marvellousaccuracy of ear, of eye, of scent, probably also of touch; yet they areindifferent to physical pain; or must I mortify your pride by saying thatthey have some moral quality defective in you which enables them to risesuperior to it?"

"The Indian savages, " said Margrave, sullenly, "have not a health asperfect as mine, and in what you call vitality--the blissful consciousnessof life--they are as sticks and stones compared to me. "

"How do you know?"

"Because I have lived with them. It is a fallacy to suppose that thesavage has a health superior to that of the civilized man, --if thecivilized man be but temperate; and even if not, he has the stamina thatcan resist for years the effect of excesses which would destroy the savagein a month. As to the savage's fine perceptions of sense, such do notcome from exquisite equilibrium of system, but are hereditary attributestransmitted from race to race, and strengthened by training from infancy. But is a pointer stronger and healthier than a mastiff, because thepointer through long descent and early teaching creeps stealthily to hisgame and stands to it motionless? I will talk of this later; now Isuffer! Pain, pain! Has life any ill but pain?"

It so happened that I had about me some roots of the white lily, which Imeant, before returning home, to leave with a patient suffering from oneof those acute local inflammations, in which that simple remedy oftenaffords great relief. I cut up one of these roots, and bound the coolingleaves to the wounded hand with my handkerchief. 

"There, " said I. "Fortunately if you feel pain more sensibly than others, you will recover from it more quickly. " And in a few minutes mycompanion felt perfectly relieved, and poured out his gratitude with anextravagance of expression and a beaming delight of countenance whichpositively touched me. 

"I almost feel, " said I, "as I do when I have stilled an infant's wailing, and restored it smiling to its mother's breast. "

"You have done so. I am an infant, and Nature is my mother. Oh, to berestored to the full joy of life, the scent of wild flowers, the song ofbirds, and this air--summer air--summer air!"

I know not why it was, but at that moment, looking at him and hearing him, I rejoiced that Lilian was not at L----. "But I came out to bathe. Canwe not bathe in that stream?"

"No. You would derange the bandage round your hand; and for all bodilyills, from the least to the gravest, there is nothing like leaving Natureat rest the moment we have hit on the means which assist her own effortsat cure. "

"I obey, then; but I so love the water. "

"You swim, of course?"

"Ask the fish if it swim. Ask the fish if it can escape me! I delight todive down--down; to plunge after the startled trout, as an otter does; andthen to get amongst those cool, fragrant reeds and bulrushes, or thatforest of emerald weed which one sometimes finds waving under clearrivers. Man! man! could you live but an hour of my life you would knowhow horrible a thing it is to die!"

"Yet the dying do not think so; they pass away calm and smiling, as youwill one day. "

"I--I! die one day--die!" and he sank on the grass, and buried his faceamongst the herbage, sobbing aloud. 

Before I could get through half a dozen words I meant to soothe, he hadonce more bounded up, dashed the tears from his eyes, and was againsinging some wild, barbaric chant. Abstracting itself from the appeal toits outward sense by melodies of which the language was unknown, my mindsoon grew absorbed in meditative conjectures on the singular nature, sowayward, so impulsive, which had forced intimacy on a man grave andpractical as myself. 

I was puzzled how to reconcile so passionate a childishness, soundisciplined a want of self-control, with an experience of mankind soextended by travel, with an education desultory and irregular indeed, butwhich must, at some time or other, have been familiarized to severereasonings and laborious studies. In Margrave there seemed to be wantingthat mysterious something which is needed to keep our faculties, howeverseverally brilliant, harmoniously linked together, --as the string bywhich a child mechanically binds the wildflowers it gathers, shaping themat choice into the garland or the chain. 

[1] "According to the views we have mentioned, we must ascribe life to agas, that is, to an aeriform body. "--Liebig: "Organic Chemistry, "Mayfair's translation, p. 363. --It is perhaps not less superfluous to addthat Liebig does not support the views "according to which life must beascribed to a gas, " than it would be to state, had Dugald Stewart beenquoted as writing, "According to the views we have mentioned the mind isbut a bundle of impressions, " that Dugald Stewart was not supporting, butopposing, the views of David Hume. The quotation is merely meant to show, in the shortest possible compass, that there are views entertained byspeculative reasoners of our day which, according to Liebig, would lead tothe inference at which Margrave so boldly arrives. Margrave is, however, no doubt, led to his belief by his reminiscences of Van Helmont, to whosediscovery of gas he is referring. Van Helmont plainly affirms "that thearterial spirit of our life is of the nature of a gas;" and in the samechapter (on the fiction of elementary complexions and mixtures) says, "Seeing that the spirit of our life, since it is a gas, is most mightilyand swiftly affected by any other gas, " etc. He repeats the same dogma inhis treatise on "Long Life, " and indeed very generally throughout hiswritings, observing, in his chapter on the Vital Air, that the spirit oflife is a salt, sharp vapour, made of the arterial blood, etc. Liebig, therefore, in confuting some modern notions as to the nature of contagionby miasma, is leading their reasonings back to that assumption in theBrawn of physiological science by which the discoverer of gas exalted intothe principle of life the substance to which he first gave the name, nowso familiarly known. It is nevertheless just to Van Helmont to add thathis conception of the vital principle was very far from being as purelymaterialistic as it would seem to those unacquainted with his writings;for he carefully distinguishes that principle of life which he ascribes toa gas, and by which he means the sensuous animal life, from theintellectual immortal principle of soul. Van Helmont, indeed, was asincere believer of Divine Revelation. "The Lord Jesus is the way, thetruth, and the life, " says with earnest humility this daring genius, inthat noble chapter "On the completing of the mind by the 'prayer ofsilence, ' and the loving offering tip of the heart, soul, and strength tothe obedience of the Divine will, " from which some of the most eloquent ofrecent philosophers, arguing against materialism, have borrowed largely insupport and in ornament of their lofty cause.