CHAPTER XXV. 

My intercourse with Margrave grew habitual and familiar. He came to myhouse every morning before sunrise; in the evenings we were again broughttogether: sometimes in the houses to which we were both invited, sometimesat his hotel, sometimes in my own home. 

Nothing more perplexed me than his aspect of extreme youthfulness, contrasted with the extent of the travels, which, if he were to bebelieved, had left little of the known world unexplored. One day I askedhim bluntly how old he was. 

"How old do I look? How old should you suppose me to be?"

"I should have guessed you to be about twenty, till you spoke of havingcome of age some years ago. "

"Is it a sign of longevity when a man looks much younger than he is?"

"Conjoined with other signs, certainly!"

"Have I the other signs?"

"Yes, a magnificent, perhaps a matchless, constitutional organization. But you have evaded my question as to your age; was it an impertinence toput it?"

"No. I came of age--let me see--three years ago. "

"So long since? Is it possible? I wish I had your secret!"

"Secret! What secret?"

"The secret of preserving so much of boyish freshness in the wear and tearof man-like passions and man-like thoughts. "

"You are still young yourself, --under forty?"

"Oh, yes! some years under forty. "

"And Nature gave you a grander frame and a finer symmetry of feature thanshe bestowed on me. "

"Pooh! pooh! You have the beauty that must charm the eyes of woman, andthat beauty in its sunny forenoon of youth. Happy man! if you love andwish to be sure that you are loved again. "

"What you call love--the unhealthy sentiment, the feverish folly--leftbehind me, I think forever, when--"

"Ay, indeed, --when?"

"I came of age!"

"Hoary cynic! and you despise love! So did I once. Your time may come. "

"I think not. Does any animal, except man, love its fellow she-animal asman loves woman?"

"As man loves woman? No, I suppose not. "

"And why should the subject animals be wiser than their king? But toreturn: you would like to have my youth and my careless enjoyment ofyouth?"

"Can you ask, --who would not?" Margrave looked at me for a moment withunusual seriousness, and then, in the abrupt changes common to hiscapricious temperament, began to sing softly one of his barbaricchants, --a chant different from any I had heard him sing before, made, either by the modulation of his voice or the nature of the tune, so sweetthat, little as music generally affected me, this thrilled to my veryheart's core. I drew closer and closer to him, and murmured when hepaused, --

"Is not that a love-song?"

"No;" said he, "it is the song by which the serpent-charmer charms theserpent. "

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Increased intimacy with my new acquaintance did not diminish the charm ofhis society, though it brought to light some startling defects, both inhis mental and moral organization. I have before said that his knowledge, though it had swept over a wide circuit and dipped into curious, unfrequented recesses, was desultory and erratic. It certainly was notthat knowledge, sustained and aspiring, which the poet assures us is "thewing on which we mount to heaven. " So, in his faculties themselves therewere singular inequalities, or contradictions. His power of memory insome things seemed prodigious, but when examined it was seldom accurate;it could apprehend, but did not hold together with a binding grasp whatmetaphysicians call "complex ideas. " He thus seemed unable to put it toany steadfast purpose in the sciences of which it retained, vaguely andloosely, many recondite principles. For the sublime and beautiful inliterature lie had no taste whatever. A passionate lover of nature, hisimagination had no response to the arts by which nature is expressed oridealized; wholly unaffected by poetry or painting. Of the fine arts, music alone attracted and pleased him. His conversation was ofteneminently suggestive, touching on much, whether in books or mankind, thatset one thinking; but I never remember him to have uttered any of thoselofty or tender sentiments which form the connecting links between youthand genius; for if poets sing to the young, and the young hail their owninterpreters in poets, it is because the tendency of both is to idealizethe realities of life, --finding everywhere in the real a something that isnoble or fair, and making the fair yet fairer, and the noble nobler still. 

In Margrave's character there seemed no special vices, no special virtues;but a wonderful vivacity, joyousness, animal good-humour. He wassingularly temperate, having a dislike to wine, perhaps from that purityof taste which belongs to health absolutely perfect. No healthful childlikes alcohol; no animal, except man, prefers wine to water. 

But his main moral defect seemed to me in a want of sympathy, even wherehe professed attachment. He who could feel so acutely for himself, beunmanned by the bite of a squirrel, and sob at the thought that he shouldone day die, was as callous to the sufferings of another as a deer whodeserts and butts from him a wounded comrade. 

I give an instance of this hardness of heart where I should have leastexpected to find it in him. 

He had met and joined me as I was walking to visit a patient on theoutskirts of the town, when we fell in with a group of children, just letloose for an hour or two from their day-school. Some of these childrenjoyously recognized him as having played with them at their homes; theyran up to him, and he seemed as glad as themselves at the meeting. 

He suffered them to drag him along with them, and became as merry andsportive as the youngest of the troop. 

"Well, " said I, laughing, "if you are going to play at leap-frog, praydon't let it be on the high road, or you will be run over by carts anddraymen; see that meadow just in front to the left, --off with you there!"

"With all my heart, " cried Margrave, "while you pay your visit. Comealong, boys. "

A little urchin, not above six years old, but who was lame, began to cry;he could not run, --he should be left behind. 

Margrave stooped. "Climb on my shoulder, little one, and I'll be yourhorse. "

The child dried its tears, and delightedly obeyed. "Certainly, " said I tomyself, "Margrave, after all, must have a nature as gentle as it issimple. What other young man, so courted by all the allurements thatsteal innocence from pleasure, would stop in the thoroughfares to playwith children?"

The thought had scarcely passed through my mind when I heard a scream ofagony. Margrave had leaped the railing that divided the meadow from theroad, and, in so doing, the poor child, perched on his shoulder, had, perhaps from surprise or fright, loosened its hold and fallen heavily; itscries were piteous. Margrave clapped his hands to his ears, uttered anexclamation of anger, and not even stopping to lift up the boy, or examinewhat the hurt was, called to the other children to come on, and was soonrolling with them on the grass, and pelting them with daisies. When Icame up, only one child remained by the sufferer, -his little brother, ayear older than himself. The child had fallen on his arm, which was notbroken, but violently contused. The pain must have been intense. Icarried the child to his home, and had to remain there some time. I didnot see Margrave till the next morning. When he then called, I felt soindignant that I could scarcely speak to him. When at last I rebukedhim for his inhumanity, he seemed surprised; with difficulty rememberedthe circumstance, and then merely said, as if it were the most naturalconfession in the world, "Oh, nothing so discordant as a child's wail. I hate discords. I ampleased with the company of children; but they must be children who laughand play. Well, why do you look at me so sternly? What have I said toshock you?"

"Shock me! you shock manhood itself! Go; I cannot talk to you now. I ambusy. "

But he did not go; and his voice was so sweet, and his ways so winning, that disgust insensibly melted into that sort of forgiveness one accords(let me repeat the illustration) to the deer that forsakes its comrade. The poor thing knows no better. And what a graceful beautiful thing thiswas!

The fascination--I can give it no other name--which Margrave exercised, was not confined to me; it was universal, --old, young, high, low, man, woman, child, all felt it. Never in Low Town had stranger, even the mostdistinguished by fame, met with a reception so cordial, so flattering. His frank confession that he was a natural son, far from being to hisinjury, served to interest people more in him, and to prevent all thoseinquiries in regard to his connections and antecedents which wouldotherwise have been afloat. To be sure, he was evidently rich, --at leasthe had plenty of money. He lived in the best rooms in the principalhotel; was very hospitable; entertained the families with whom he hadgrown intimate; made them bring their children, --music and dancing afterdinner. Among the houses in which he had established familiaracquaintance was that of the mayor of the town, who had bought Dr. Lloyd'scollection of subjects in natural history. To that collection the mayorhad added largely by a very recent purchase. He had arranged thesevarious specimens, which his last acquisitions had enriched by theinteresting carcasses of an elephant and a hippopotamus, in a large woodenbuilding contiguous to his dwelling, which had been constructed by aformer proprietor (a retired fox-hunter) as a riding-house; and being aman who much affected the diffusion of knowledge, he proposed to open thismuseum to the admiration of the general public, and, at his death, tobequeath it to the Athenaeum or Literary Institute of his native town. Margrave, seconded by the influence of the mayor's daughters, had scarcelybeen three days at L---- before he had persuaded this excellent andpublic-spirited functionary to inaugurate the opening of his museum by thepopular ceremony of a ball. A temporary corridor should unite thedrawing-rooms, which were on the ground floor, with the building thatcontained the collection; and thus the fete would be elevated above thefrivolous character of a fashionable amusement, and consecrated to thesolemnization of an intellectual institute. Dazzled by the brilliancy ofthis idea, the mayor announced his intention to give a ball that shouldinclude the surrounding neighbourhood, and be worthy, in all expensiverespects, of the dignity of himself and the occasion. A night had beenfixed for the ball, --a night that became memorable indeed to me! Theentertainment was anticipated with a lively interest, in which even theHill condescended to share. The Hill did not much patronize mayors ingeneral; but when a Mayor gave a ball for a purpose so patriotic, and on ascale so splendid, the Hill liberally acknowledged that Commerce was, onthe whole, a thing which the Eminence might, now and then, condescend toacknowledge without absolutely derogating from the rank which Providencehad assigned to it amongst the High Places of earth. Accordingly, theHill was permitted by its Queen to honour the first magistrate of Low Townby a promise to attend his ball. Now, as this festivity had originated inthe suggestion of Margrave, so, by a natural association of ideas, everyone, in talking of the ball, talked also of Margrave. 

The Hill had at first affected to ignore a stranger whose debut had beenmade in the mercantile circle of Low Town. But the Queen of the Hill nowsaid, sententiously, "This new man in a few days has become a Celebrity. It is the policy of the Hill to adopt Celebrities, if the Celebrities payrespect to the Proprieties. Dr. Fenwick is requested to procure Mr. Margrave the advantage of being known to the Hill. "

I found it somewhat difficult to persuade Margrave to accept the Hill'scondescending overture. He seemed to have a dislike to all societiespretending to aristocratic distinction, --a dislike expressed with afierceness so unwonted, that it made one suppose he had, at some time orother, been subjected to mortification by the supercilious airs that blowupon heights so elevated. However, he yielded to my instances, andaccompanied me one evening to Mrs. Poyntz's house. The Hill was encampedthere for the occasion. Mrs. Poyntz was exceedingly civil to him, andafter a few commonplace speeches, hearing that he was fond of music, consigned him to the caressing care of Miss Brabazon, who was at the headof the musical department in the Queen of the Hill's administration. 

Mrs. Poyntz retired to her favourite seat near the window, inviting me tosit beside her; and while she knitted in silence, in silence my eyeglanced towards Margrave, in the midst of the group assembled round thepiano. 

Whether he was in more than usually high spirits, or whether he wasactuated by a malign and impish desire to upset the established laws ofdecorum by which the gayeties of the Hill were habitually subdued into aserene and somewhat pensive pleasantness, I know not; but it was not manyminutes before the orderly aspect of the place was grotesquely changed. 

Miss Brabazon having come to the close of a complicated and dreary sonata, I heard Margrave abruptly ask her if she could play the Tarantella, thatfamous Neapolitan air which is founded on the legendary belief that thebite of the tarantula excites an irresistible desire to dance. On thathighbred spinster's confession that she was ignorant of the air, and hadnot even heard of the legend, Margrave said, "Let me play it to you, withvariations of my own. " Miss Brabazon graciously yielded her place at theinstrument. Margrave seated himself, --there was great curiosity to hearhis performance. Margrave's fingers rushed over the keys, and there was ageneral start, the prelude was so unlike any known combination ofharmonious sounds. Then he began a chant--song I can scarcely callit--words certainly not in Italian, perhaps in some uncivilized tongue, perhaps in impromptu gibberish. And the torture of the instrument nowcommenced in good earnest: it shrieked, it groaned, wilder and noisier. Beethoven's Storm, roused by the fell touch of a German pianist, were mildin comparison; and the mighty voice, dominating the anguish of thecracking keys, had the full diapason of a chorus. Certainly I am no judgeof music, but to my ear the discord was terrific, --to the ears of betterinformed amateurs it seemed ravishing. All were spellbound; even Mrs. Poyntz paused from her knitting, as the Fates paused from their web at thelyre of Orpheus. To this breathless delight, however, soon succeeded ageneral desire for movement. To my amazement, I beheld these formalmatrons and sober fathers of families forming themselves into a dance, turbulent as a children's ball at Christmas; and when, suddenly desistingfrom his music, Margrave started up, caught the skeleton hand of leanMiss Brabazon, and whirled her into the centre of the dance, I could havefancied myself at a witch's sabbat. My eye turned in scandalized alarmtowards Mrs. Poyntz. That great creature seemed as much astounded asmyself. Her eyes were fixed on the scene in a stare of positive stupor. For the first time, no doubt, in her life, she was overcome, deposed, dethroned. The awe of her presence was literally whirled away. The danceceased as suddenly as it had begun. Darting from the galvanized mummywhom he had selected as his partner, Margrave shot to Mrs. Poyntz's side, and said, "Ten thousand pardons for quitting you so soon, but the clockwarns me that I have an engagement elsewhere. " In another moment he wasgone. 

The dance halted, people seemed slowly returning to their senses, looking at each other bashfully and ashamed. 

"I could not help it, dear, " sighed Miss Brabazon at last, sinking into achair, and casting her deprecating, fainting eyes upon the hostess. 

"It is witchcraft, " said fat Mrs. Bruce, wiping her forehead. 

"Witchcraft!" echoed Mrs. Poyntz; "it does indeed look like it. Anamazing and portentous exhibition of animal spirits, and not to be enduredby the Proprieties. Where on earth can that young savage have come from?"

"From savage lands, " said I, --"so he says. "

"Do not bring him here again, " said Mrs. Poyntz. "He would soon turn theHill topsy-turvy. But how charming! I should like to see more of him, "she added, in an under voice, "if he would call on me some morning, andnot in the presence of those for whose Proprieties I am responsible. Janemust be out in her ride with the colonel. "

Margrave never again attended the patrician festivities of the Hill. Invitations were poured upon him, especially by Miss Brabazon and theother old maids, but in vain. 

"Those people, " said he, "are too tamed and civilized for me; and so fewyoung persons among them. Even that girl Jane is only young on thesurface; inside, as old as the World or her mother. I like youth, realyouth, --I am young, I am young!"

And, indeed, I observed he would attach himself to some young person, often to some child, as if with cordial and special favour, yet for notmore than an hour or so, never distinguishing them by the same preferencewhen he next met them. I made that remark to him, in rebuke of hisfickleness, one evening when he had found me at work on my Ambitious Book, reducing to rule and measure the Laws of Nature. 

"It is not fickleness, " said he, --"it is necessity. "

"Necessity! Explain yourself. "

"I seek to find what I have not found, " said he; it is my necessity toseek it, and among the young; and disappointed in one, I turn to theother. Necessity again. But find it at last I must. "

"I suppose you mean what the young usually seek in the young; and if, asyou said the other day, you have left love behind you, you now wander backto re-find it. "

"Tush! If I may judge by the talk of young fools, love may be foundevery day by him who looks out for it. What I seek is among the rarest ofall discoveries. You might aid me to find it, and in so doing aidyourself to a knowledge far beyond all that your formal experiments canbestow. "

"Prove your words, and command my services, " said I, smiling somewhatdisdainfully. 

"You told me that you had examined into the alleged phenomena of animalmagnetism, and proved some persons who pretend to the gift which theScotch call second sight to be bungling impostors. You were right. Ihave seen the clairvoyants who drive their trade in this town; a commongipsy could beat them in their own calling. But your experience musthave shown you that there are certain temperaments in which the gift ofthe Pythoness is stored, unknown to the possessor, undetected by thecommon observer; but the signs of which should be as apparent to themodern physiologist, as they were to the ancient priest. "

"I at least, as a physiologist, am ignorant of the signs: what are they?"

"I should despair of making you comprehend them by mere verbaldescription. I could guide your observation to distinguish themunerringly were living subjects before us. But not one in a million hasthe gift to an extent available for the purposes to which the wise wouldapply it. Many have imperfect glimpses; few, few indeed, the unveiled, lucent sight. They who have but the imperfect glimpses mislead and dupethe minds that consult them, because, being sometimes marvellously right, they excite a credulous belief in their general accuracy; and as they arebut translators of dreams in their own brain, their assurances are no moreto be trusted than are the dreams of commonplace sleepers. But where thegift exists to perfection, he who knows how to direct and to profit by itshould be able to discover all that he desires to know for the guidanceand preservation of his own life. He will be forewarned of every danger, forearmed in the means by which danger is avoided. For the eye of thetrue Pythoness matter has no obstruction, space no confines, time nomeasurement. "

"My dear Margrave, you may well say that creatures so gifted are rare;and, for my part, I would as soon search for a unicorn, as, to use youraffected expression, for a Pythoness. "

"Nevertheless, whenever there come across the course of your practice someyoung creature to whom all the evil of the world is as yet unknown, towhom the ordinary cares and duties of the world are strange and unwelcome;who from the earliest dawn of reason has loved to sit apart and to muse;before whose eyes visions pass unsolicited; who converses with those whoare not dwellers on the earth, and beholds in the space landscapes whichthe earth does not reflect--"

"Margrave, Margrave! of whom do you speak?"

"Whose frame, though exquisitely sensitive, has still a health and asoundness in which you recognize no disease; whose mind has a truthfulnessthat you know cannot deceive you, and a simple intelligence too clear todeceive itself; who is moved to a mysterious degree by all the varyingaspects of external nature, --innocently joyous, or unaccountablysad, --when, I say, such a being comes across your experience, inform me;and the chances are that the true Pythoness is found. "

I had listened with vague terror, and with more than one exclamation ofamazement, to descriptions which brought Lilian Ashleigh before me; and Inow sat mute, bewildered, breathless, gazing upon Margrave, and rejoicingthat, at least, Lilian he had never seen. 

He returned my own gaze steadily, searchingly, and then, breakinginto a slight laugh, resumed:--

"You call my word 'Pythoness' affected. I know of no better. Myrecollections of classic anecdote and history are confused and dim; butsomewhere I have read or heard that the priests of Delphi were accustomedto travel chiefly into Thrace or Thessaly, in search of the virgins whomight fitly administer their oracles, and that the oracles graduallyceased in repute as the priests became unable to discover theorganization requisite in the priestesses, and supplied by craft andimposture, or by such imperfect fragmentary developments as belong now toprofessional clairvoyants, the gifts which Nature failed to afford. Indeed, the demand was one that mast have rapidly exhausted so limited asupply. The constant strain upon faculties so wearying to the vitalfunctions in their relentless exercise, under the artful stimulants bywhich the priests heightened their power, was mortal, and no Pythonessever retained her life more than three years from the time that her giftwas elaborately trained and developed. "

"Pooh! I know of no classical authority for the details you soconfidently cite. Perhaps some such legends may be found in theAlexandrian Platonists, but those mystics are no authority on such asubject. "After all;" I added, recovering from my first surprise, or awe, "the Delphic oracles were proverbially ambiguous, and their responsesmight be read either way, --a proof that the priests dictated the verses, though their arts on the unhappy priestess might throw her into realconvulsions, and the real convulsions, not the false gift, might shortenher life. Enough of such idle subjects! Yet no! one question more. Ifyou found your Pythoness, what then?"

"What then? Why, through her aid I might discover the process of anexperiment which your practical science would assist me to complete. "

"Tell me of what kind is your experiment; and precisely because suchlittle science as I possess is exclusively practical, I may assist youwithout the help of the Pythoness. "

Margrave was silent for some minutes, passing his hand several timesacross his forehead, which was a frequent gesture of his, and then rising, he answered, in listless accents, --

"I cannot say more now, my brain is fatigued; and you are not yet in theright mood to hear me. By the way, how close and reserved you are withme!"

"How so?"

"You never told me that you were engaged to be married. You leave me, whothought to have won your friendship, to hear what concerns you sointimately from a comparative stranger. "

"Who told you?"

"That woman with eyes that pry and lips that scheme, to whose house youtook me. "

"Mrs. Poyntz! is it possible? When?"

"This afternoon. I met her in the street; she stopped me, and, after someunmeaning talk, asked if I had seen you lately; if I did not find you veryabsent and distracted: no wonder;--you were in love. The young lady wasaway on a visit, and wooed by a dangerous rival. "

"Wooed by a dangerous rival!"

"Very rich, good-looking, young. Do you fear him? You turn pale. "

"I do not fear, except so far as he who loves truly, loves humbly, andfears not that another may be preferred, but that another may be worthierof preference than himself. But that Mrs. Poyntz should tell you all thisdoes amaze me. Did she mention the name of the young lady?"

"Yes; Lilian Ashleigh. Henceforth be more frank with me. Who knows? Imay help you. Adieu!"

CHAPTER XXVII. 

When Margrave had gone, I glanced at the clock, --not yet nine. I resolvedto go at once to Mrs. Poyntz. It was not an evening on which shereceived, but doubtless she would see me. She owed me an explanation. How thus carelessly divulge a secret she had been enjoined to keep; andthis rival, of whom I was ignorant? It was no longer a matter of wonderthat Hargrave should have described Lilian's peculiar idiosyncrasies inhis sketch of his fabulous Pythoness. Doubtless Mrs. Poyntz had, withunpardonable levity of indiscretion, revealed all of which she disapprovedin my choice. But for what object? Was this her boasted friendship forme? Was it consistent with the regard she professed for Mrs. Ashleigh andLilian? Occupied by these perplexed and indignant thoughts, I arrived atMrs. Poyntz's house, and was admitted to her presence. She wasfortunately alone; her daughter and the colonel had gone to some party onthe Hill. I would not take the hand she held out to me on entrance;seated myself in stern displeasure, and proceeded at once to inquire ifshe had really betrayed to Mr. Margrave the secret of my engagement toLilian. 

"Yes, Allen Fenwick; I have this day told, not only Mr. Margrave, butevery person I met who is likely to tell it to some one else, the secretof your engagement to Lilian Ashleigh. I never promised to conceal it; onthe contrary, I wrote word to Anne Ashleigh that I would therein act as myown judgment counselled me. I think my words to you were that 'publicgossip was sometimes the best security for the completion of privateengagements. '"

"Do you mean that Mrs. Or Miss Ashleigh recoils from the engagement withme, and that I should meanly compel them both to fulfil it by calling inthe public to censure them--if--if--Oh, madam, this is worldly artificeindeed!"

"Be good enough to listen to me quietly. I have never yet showed you theletter to Mrs. Ashleigh, written by Lady Haughton, and delivered by Mr. Vigors. That letter I will now show to you; but before doing so I mustenter into a preliminary explanation. Lady Haughton is one of those womenwho love power, and cannot obtain it except through wealth andstation, --by her own intellect never obtain it. When her husband died shewas reduced from an income of twelve thousand a year to a jointure oftwelve hundred, but with the exclusive guardianship of a young son, aminor, and adequate allowances for the charge; she continued, therefore, to preside as mistress over the establishments in town and country; stillhad the administration of her son's wealth and rank. She stinted hiseducation, in order to maintain her ascendancy over him. He became abrainless prodigal, spendthrift alike of health and fortune. Alarmed, shesaw that, probably, he would die young and a beggar; his only hope ofreform was in marriage. She reluctantly resolved to marry him to apenniless, well-born, soft-minded young lady whom she knew she couldcontrol; just before this marriage was to take place he was killed by afall from his horse. The Haughton estate passed to his cousin, theluckiest young man alive, --the same Ashleigh Sumner who had alreadysucceeded, in default of male issue, to poor Gilbert Ashleigh's landedpossessions. Over this young man Lady Haughton could expect no influence. She would be a stranger in his house. But she had a niece! Mr. Vigorsassured her the niece was beautiful. And if the niece could become Mrs. Ashleigh Sumner, then Lady Haughton would be a less unimportant Nobody inthe world, because she would still have her nearest relation in a Somebodyat Haughton Park. Mr. Vigors has his own pompous reasons for approving analliance which he might help to accomplish. The first step towards thatalliance was obviously to bring into reciprocal attraction the naturalcharms of the young lady and the acquired merits of the young gentleman. Mr. Vigors could easily induce his ward to pay a visit to Lady Haughton, and Lady Haughton had only to extend her invitations to her niece; hencethe letter to Mrs. Ashleigh, of which Mr. Vigors was the bearer, and hencemy advice to you, of which you can now understand the motive. Since youthought Lilian Ashleigh the only woman you could love, and since I thoughtthere were other women in the world who might do as well for AshleighSumner, it seemed to me fair for all parties that Lilian should not go toLady Haughton's in ignorance of the sentiments with which she had inspiredyou. A girl can seldom be sure that she loves until she is sure that sheis loved. And now, " added Mrs. Poyntz, rising and walking across the roomto her bureau, --"now I will show you Lady Haughton's invitation to Mrs. Ashleigh. Here it is!"

I ran my eye over the letter, which she thrust into my hand, resuming herknitting-work while I read. 

The letter was short, couched in conventional terms of hollow affection. The writer blamed herself for having so long neglected her brother's widowand child; her heart had been wrapped up too much in the son she had lost;that loss had made her turn to the ties of blood still left to her; shehad heard much of Lilian from their common friend, Mr. Vigors; she longedto embrace so charming a niece. Then followed the invitation and thepostscript. The postscript ran thus, so far as I can remember:--

 "Whatever my own grief at my irreparable bereavement, I am no egotist; I keep my sorrow to myself. You will find some pleasant guests at my house, among others our joint connection, young Ashleigh Sumner. "

"Woman's postscripts are proverbial for their significance, " saidMrs. Poyntz, when I had concluded the letter and laid it on the table;"and if I did not at once show you this hypocritical effusion, it wassimply because at the name Ashleigh Sumner its object became transparent, not perhaps to poor Anne Ashleigh nor to innocent Lilian, but to myknowledge of the parties concerned, as it ought to be to that shrewdintelligence which you derive partly from nature, partly from the insightinto life which a true physician cannot fail to acquire. And if I knowanything of you, you would have romantically said, had you seen the letterat first, and understood its covert intention, 'Let me not shackle thechoice of the woman I love, and to whom an alliance so coveted in the eyesof the world might, if she were left free, be proffered. '"

"I should not have gathered from the postscript all that you see in it;but had its purport been so suggested to me, you are right, I should haveso said. Well, and as Mr. Margrave tells me that you informed him that Ihave a rival, I am now to conclude that the rival is Mr. Ashleigh Sumner?"

"Has not Mrs. Ashleigh or Lilian mentioned him in writing to you?"

"Yes, both; Lilian very slightly, Mrs. Ashleigh with some praise, as ayoung man of high character, and very courteous to her. "

"Yet, though I asked you to come and tell me who were the guests at LadyHaughton's, you never did so. "

"Pardon me; but of the guests I thought nothing, and letters addressed tomy heart seemed to me too sacred to talk about. And Ashleigh Sumner thencourts Lilian! How do you know?"

"I know everything that concerns me; and here, the explanation is simple. My aunt, Lady Delafield, is staying with Lady Haughton. Lady Delafield isone of the women of fashion who shine by their own light; Lady Haughtonshines by borrowed light, and borrows every ray she can find. "

"And Lady Delafield writes you word--"

"That Ashleigh Sumner is caught by Lilian's beauty. "

"And Lilian herself--"

"Women like Lady Delafield do not readily believe that any girl couldrefuse Ashleigh Sumner; considered in himself, he is steady and good-looking; considered as owner of Kirby Hall and Haughton Park, he has, in the eyes of any sensible mother, the virtues of Cato and the beautyof Antinous. "

I pressed my hand to my heart; close to my heart lay a letter from Lilian, and there was no word in that letter which showed that her heart was gonefrom mine. I shook my head gently, and smiled in confiding triumph. 

Mrs. Poyntz surveyed me with a bent brow and a compressed lip. 

"I understand your smile, " she said ironically. "Very likely Lilian maybe quite untouched by this young man's admiration, but Anne Ashleigh maybe dazzled by so brilliant a prospect for her daughter; and, in short, Ithought it desirable to let your engagement be publicly known throughoutthe town to-day. That information will travel; it will reach AshleighSumner through Mr. Vigors, or others in this neighbourhood, with whom Iknow that he corresponds. It will bring affairs to a crisis, and beforeit may be too late. I think it well that Ashleigh Sumner should leavethat house; if he leave it for good, so much the better. And, perhaps, the sooner Lilian returns to L---- the lighter your own heart will be. "

"And for these reasons you have published the secret of--"

"Your engagement? Yes. Prepare to be congratulated wherever you go. Andnow if you hear either from mother or daughter that Ashleigh Sumner hasproposed, and been, let us say, refused, I do not doubt that, in the prideof your heart, you will come and tell me. "

"Rely upon it, I will; but before I take leave, allow me to ask why youdescribed to a young man like Mr. Margrave--, whose wild and strangehumours you have witnessed and not approved--any of those traits ofcharacter in Miss Ashleigh which distinguish her from other girls of herage?"

"I? You mistake. I said nothing to him of her character. I mentionedher name, and said she was beautiful, that was all. "

"Nay, you said that she was fond of musing, of solitude; that in herfancies she believed in the reality of visions which might flit before hereyes as they flit before the eyes of all imaginative dreamers. "

"Not a word did I say to Mr. Margrave of such peculiarities in Lilian; nota word more than what I have told you, on my honour!"

Still incredulous, but disguising my incredulity with that convenientsmile by which we accomplish so much of the polite dissimulationindispensable to the decencies of civilized life, I took my departure, returned home, and wrote to Lilian. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

The conversation with Mrs. Poyntz left my mind restless and disquieted. Ihad no doubt, indeed, of Lilian's truth; but could I be sure that theattentions of a young man, with advantages of fortune so brilliant, wouldnot force on her thoughts the contrast of the humbler lot and the dullerwalk of life in which she had accepted as companion a man removed from herromantic youth less by disparity of years than by gravity of pursuits?And would my suit now be as welcomed as it had been by a mother even sounworldly as Mrs. Ashleigh? Why, too, should both mother and daughterhave left me so unprepared to hear that I had a rival; why not haveimplied some consoling assurance that such rivalry need not cause mealarm? Lilian's letters, it is true, touched but little on any of thepersons round her; they were filled with the outpourings of an ingenuousheart, coloured by the glow of a golden fancy. They were written as if inthe wide world we two stood apart alone, consecrated from the crowd by thelove that, in linking us together, had hallowed each to the other. Mrs. Ashleigh's letters were more general and diffusive, --detailed the habitsof the household, sketched the guests, intimated her continued fear ofLady Haughton, but had said nothing more of Mr. Ashleigh Sumner than I hadrepeated to Mrs. Poyntz. However, in my letter to Lilian I related theintelligence that had reached me, and impatiently I awaited her reply. 

Three days after the interview with Mrs. Poyntz, and two days before thelong-anticipated event of the mayor's ball, I was summoned to attend anobleman who had lately been added to my list of patients, and whoseresidence was about twelve miles from L----. The nearest way was throughSir Philip Derval's park. I went on horseback, and proposed to stop onthe way to inquire after the steward, whom I had seen but once since hisfit, and that was two days after it, when he called himself at my house tothank me for my attendance, and to declare that he was quite recovered. 

As I rode somewhat fast through the park, I came, however, upon thesteward, just in front of the house. I reined in my horse and accostedhim. He looked very cheerful. 

"Sir, " said he, in a whisper, "I have heard from Sir Philip; his letter isdated since--since-my good woman told you what I saw, --well, since then. So that it must have been all a delusion of mine, as you told her. Andyet, well--well--we will not talk of it, doctor; but I hope you have keptthe secret. Sir Philip would not like to hear of it, if he comes back. "

"Your secret is quite safe with me. But is Sir Philip likely to comeback?"

"I hope so, doctor. His letter is dated Paris, and that's nearer homethan he has been for many years; and--but bless me! some one is comingout of the house, --a young gentleman! Who can it be?"

I looked, and to my surprise I saw Margrave descending the stately stairsthat led from the front door. The steward turned towards him, and Imechanically followed, for I was curious to know what had brought Margraveto the house of the long-absent traveller. 

It was easily explained. Mr. Margrave had heard at L---- much of thepictures and internal decorations of the mansion. He had, by dint ofcoaxing (he said, with his enchanting laugh), persuaded the oldhousekeeper to show him the rooms. 

"It is against Sir Philip's positive orders to show the house to anystranger, sir; and the housekeeper has done very wrong, " said the steward. 

"Pray don't scold her. I dare say Sir Philip would not have refused me apermission he might not give to every idle sightseer. Fellow-travellershave a freemasonry with each other; and I have been much in the same farcountries as himself. I heard of him there, and could tell you more abouthim, I dare say, than you know yourself. "

"You, sir! pray do then. "

"The next time I come, " said Margrave, gayly; and, with a nod to me, heglided off through the trees of the neighbouring grove, along the windingfootpath that led to the lodge. 

"A very cool gentleman, " muttered the steward; "but what pleasant ways hehas! You seem to know him, sir. Who is he, may I ask?"

"Mr. Margrave, --a visitor at L----, and he has been a great traveller, ashe says; perhaps he met Sir Philip abroad. "

"I must go and hear what he said to Mrs. Gates; excuse me, sir, but I amso anxious about Sir Philip. "

"If it be not too great a favour, may I be allowed the same privilegegranted to Mr. Margrave? To judge by the outside of the house, the insidemust be worth seeing; still, if it be against Sir Philip's positiveorders--"

"His orders were, not to let the Court become a show-house, --to admit nonewithout my consent; but I should be ungrateful indeed, doctor, if Irefused that consent to you. "

I tied my horse to the rusty gate of the terrace-walk, and followed thesteward up the broad stairs of the terrace. The great doors wereunlocked. We entered a lofty hall with a domed ceiling; at the back ofthe hall the grand staircase ascended by a double flight. The design wasundoubtedly Vanbrugh's, --an architect who, beyond all others, sought theeffect of grandeur less in space than in proportion; but Vanbrugh'sdesigns need the relief of costume and movement, and the forms of a morepompous generation, in the bravery of velvets and laces, glancing amidthose gilded columns, or descending with stately tread those broadpalatial stairs. His halls and chambers are so made for festival andthrong, that they become like deserted theatres, inexpressibly desolate, as we miss the glitter of the lamps and the movement of the actors. 

The housekeeper had now appeared, --a quiet, timid old woman. She excusedherself for admitting Margrave--not very intelligibly. It was plain tosee that she had, in truth, been unable to resist what the steward termedhis "pleasant ways. "

As if to escape from a scolding, she talked volubly all the time, bustlingnervously through the rooms, along which I followed her guidance with ahushed footstep. The principal apartments were on the ground-floor, orrather, a floor raised some ten or fifteen feet above the ground; they hadnot been modernized since the date in which they were built. Hangings offaded silk; tables of rare marble, and mouldered gilding; comfortlesschairs at drill against the walls; pictures, of which connoisseurs alonecould estimate the value, darkened by dust or blistered by sun and damp, made a general character of discomfort. On not one room, on not onenook, still lingered some old smile of home. 

Meanwhile, I gathered from the housekeeper's rambling answers to questionsput to her by the steward, as I moved on, glancing at the pictures, thatMargrave's visit that day was not his first. He had been to the housetwice before, --his ostensible excuse that he was an amateur in pictures(though, as I had before observed, for that department of art he had notaste); but each time he had talked much of Sir Philip. He said thatthough not personally known to him, he had resided in the same townsabroad, and had friends equally intimate with Sir Philip; but when thesteward inquired if the visitor had given any information as to theabsentee, it became very clear that Margrave had been rather askingquestions than volunteering intelligence. 

We had now come to the end of the state apartments, the last of which wasa library. "And, " said the old woman, "I don't wonder the gentleman knewSir Philip, for he seemed a scholar, and looked very hard over the books, especially those old ones by the fireplace, which Sir Philip, Heaven blesshim, was always poring into. "

Mechanically I turned to the shelves by the fireplace, and examined thevolumes ranged in that department. I found they contained the works ofthose writers whom we may class together under the title ofmystics, --Iamblichus and Plotinus; Swedenborg and Behmen; Sandivogius, VanHelmont, Paracelsus, Cardan. Works, too, were there, by writers lessrenowned, on astrology, geomancy, chiromancy, etc. I began to understandamong what class of authors Margrave had picked up the strange notionswith which he was apt to interpolate the doctrines of practical philosophy. 

"I suppose this library was Sir Philip's usual sitting-room?" said I. 

"No, sir; he seldom sat here. This was his study; "and the old womanopened a small door, masked by false book backs. I followed her into aroom of moderate size, and evidently of much earlier date than the rest ofthe house. "It is the only room left of an older mansion, " said thesteward in answer to my remark. "I have heard it was spared on account ofthe chimneypiece. But there is a Latin inscription which will tell youall about it. I don't know Latin myself. "

The chimneypiece reached to the ceiling. The frieze of the lower partrested on rude stone caryatides; the upper part was formed of oak panelsvery curiously carved in the geometrical designs favoured by the tasteprevalent in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, but different from any Ihad ever seen in the drawings of old houses, --and I was not quiteunlearned in such matters, for my poor father was a passionate antiquaryin all that relates to mediaeval art. The design in the oak panels wascomposed of triangles interlaced with varied ingenuity, and enclosed incircular bands inscribed with the signs of the Zodiac. 

On the stone frieze supported by the caryatides, immediately under thewoodwork, was inserted a metal plate, on which was written, in Latin, afew lines to the effect that "in this room, Simon Forman, the seeker ofhidden truth, taking refuge from unjust persecution, made thosediscoveries in nature which he committed, for the benefit of a wiser age, to the charge of his protector and patron, the worshipful Sir MilesDerval, knight. "

Forman! The name was not quite unfamiliar to me; but it was not withoutan effort that my memory enabled me to assign it to one of the mostnotorious of those astrologers or soothsayers whom the superstition of anearlier age alternately persecuted and honoured. 

The general character of the room was more cheerful than the statelierchambers I had hitherto passed through, for it had still the look ofhabitation, --the armchair by the fireplace; the kneehole writing-tablebeside it; the sofa near the recess of a large bay-window, with book-propand candlestick screwed to its back; maps, coiled in their cylinders, ranged under the cornice; low strong safes, skirting two sides of theroom, and apparently intended to hold papers and title-deeds, sealscarefully affixed to their jealous locks. Placed on the top of theseold-fashioned receptacles were articles familiar to modern use, --afowling-piece here, fishing-rods there, two or three simple flower-vases, a pile of music books, a box of crayons. All in this room seemed tospeak of residence and ownership, --of the idiosyncrasies of a lone singleman, it is true, but of a man of one's own time, --a country gentleman ofplain habits but not uncultivated tastes. 

I moved to the window; it opened by a sash upon a large balcony, fromwhich a wooden stair wound to a little garden, not visible in front of thehouse, surrounded by a thick grove of evergreens, through which one broadvista was cut, and that vista was closed by a view of the mausoleum. 

I stepped out into the garden, --a patch of sward with a fountain in thecentre, and parterres, now more filled with weeds than flowers. At theleft corner was a tall wooden summer-house or pavilion, --its door wideopen. "Oh, that's where Sir Philip used to study many a long summer'snight, " said the steward. 

"What! in that damp pavilion?"

"It was a pretty place enough then, sir; but it is very old, --they say asold as the room you have just left. "

"Indeed, I must look at it, then. "

The walls of this summer-house had once been painted in the arabesques ofthe Renaissance period; but the figures were now scarcely traceable. Thewoodwork had started in some places, and the sunbeams stole through thechinks and played on the floor, which was formed from old tiles quaintlytessellated and in triangular patterns; similar to those I had observed inthe chimneypiece. The room in the pavilion was large, furnished with oldworm-eaten tables and settles. "It was not only here that Sir Philipstudied, but sometimes in the room above, " said the steward. 

"How do you get to the room above? Oh, I see; a stair case in the angle. "I ascended the stairs with some caution, for they were crooked anddecayed; and, on entering the room above, comprehended at once why SirPhilip had favoured it. 

The cornice of the ceiling rested on pilasters, within which thecompartments were formed into open unglazed arches, surrounded by arailed balcony. Through these arches, on three sides of the room, the eyecommanded a magnificent extent of prospect. On the fourth side the viewwas bounded by the mausoleum. In this room was a large telescope; and onstepping into the balcony, I saw that a winding stair mounted thence to aplatform on the top of the pavilion, --perhaps once used as an observatoryby Forman himself. 

"The gentleman who was here to-day was very much pleased with thislook-out, sir, " said the housekeeper. "Who would not be? I suppose SirPhilip has a taste for astronomy. "

"I dare say, sir, " said the steward, looking grave; "he likes mostout-of-the-way things. "

The position of the sun now warned me that my time pressed, and that Ishould have to ride fast to reach my new patient at the hour appointed. Itherefore hastened back to my horse, and spurred on, wondering whether, inthe chain of association which so subtly links our pursuits in manhood toour impressions in childhood, it was the Latin inscription on thechimneypiece that had originally biassed Sir Philip Derval's literarytaste towards the mystic jargon of the books at which I had contemptuouslyglanced. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

I did not see Margrave the following day, but the next morning, a littleafter sunrise, he walked into my study, according to his ordinary habit. 

"So you know something about Sir Philip Derval?" said I. "What sort of aman is he?"

"Hateful!" cried Margrave; and then checking himself, burst out into hismerry laugh. "Just like my exaggerations! I am not acquainted withanything to his prejudice. I came across his track once or twice in theEast. Travellers are always apt to be jealous of each other. "

"You are a strange compound of cynicism and credulity; but I should havefancied that you and Sir Philip would have been congenial spirits, when Ifound, among his favourite books, Van Helmont and Paracelsus. Perhapsyou, too, study Swedenborg, or, worse still, Ptolemy and Lilly?"

"Astrologers? No! They deal with the future! I live for the day; only Iwish the day never had a morrow!"

"Have you not, then that vague desire for the something beyond, --that notunhappy, but grand discontent with the limits of the immediate Present, from which man takes his passion for improvement and progress, and fromwhich some sentimental philosophers have deduced an argument in favour ofhis destined immortality?"

"Eh!" said Margrave, with as vacant a stare as that of a peasant whom onehas addressed in Hebrew. "What farrago of words is this? I do notcomprehend you. "

"With your natural abilities, " I asked with interest, "do you never feel adesire for fame?"

"Fame? Certainly not. I cannot even understand it!"

"Well, then, would you have no pleasure in the thought that you hadrendered a service to humanity?"

Margrave looked bewildered; after a moment's pause, he took from the tablea piece of bread that chanced to be there, opened the window, and threwthe crumbs into the lane. The sparrows gathered round the crumbs. 

"Now, " said Margrave, "the sparrows come to that dull pavement for thebread that recruits their lives in this world; do you believe that onesparrow would be silly enough to fly to a house-top for the sake of somebenefit to other sparrows, or to be chirruped about after he was dead? Icare for science as the sparrow cares for bread, --it may help me tosomething good for my own life; and as for fame and humanity, I care forthem as the sparrow cares for the general interest and posthumousapprobation of sparrows!"

"Margrave, there is one thing in you that perplexes me more than allelse--human puzzle as you are--in your many eccentricities andself-contradictions. "

"What is that one thing in me most perplexing?"

"This: that in your enjoyment of Nature you have all the freshness of achild, but when you speak of Man and his objects in the world, you talk inthe vein of some worn-out and hoary cynic. At such times, were I to closemy eyes, I should say to myself, 'What weary old man is thus venting hisspleen against the ambition which has failed, and the love which hasforsaken him?' Outwardly the very personation of youth, and revelling likea butterfly in the warmth of the sun and the tints of the herbage, whyhave you none of the golden passions of the young, --their bright dreams ofsome impossible love, their sublime enthusiasm for some unattainableglory? The sentiment you have just clothed in the illustration by whichyou place yourself on a level with the sparrows is too mean and too gloomyto be genuine at your age. Misanthropy is among the dismal fallacies ofgray beards. No man, till man's energies leave him, can divorce himselffrom the bonds of our social kind. "

"Our kind! Your kind, possibly; but I--" He swept his hand over hisbrow, and resumed, in strange, absent, and wistful accents: "I wonder whatit is that is wanting here, and of which at moments I have a dimreminiscence. " Again he paused, and gazing on me, said with moreappearance of friendly interest than I had ever before remarked in hiscountenance, "You are not looking well. Despite your great physicalstrength, you suffer like your own sickly patients. "

"True! I suffer at this moment, but not from bodily pain. "

"You have some cause of mental disquietude?"

"Who in this world has not?"

"I never have. "

"Because you own you have never loved. Certainly, you never seem to carefor any one but yourself; and in yourself you find an unbroken sunnyholiday, --high spirits, youth, health, beauty, wealth. Happy boy!"

At that moment my heart was heavy within me. 

Margrave resumed, --

"Among the secrets which your knowledge places at the command of your art, what would you give for one which would enable you to defy and to deride arival where you place your affections, which could lock to yourself, andimperiously control, the will of the being whom you desire to fascinate, by an influence paramount, transcendent?"

"Love has that secret, " said I, --"and love alone. "

"A power stronger than love can suspend, can change love itself. But iflove be the object or dream of your life, love is the rosy associate ofyouth and beauty. Beauty soon fades, youth soon departs. What if innature there were means by which beauty and youth can be fixed intoblooming duration, --means that could arrest the course, nay, repair theeffects, of time on the elements that make up the human frame?"

"Silly boy! Have the Rosicrucians bequeathed to you a prescription forthe elixir of life?"

"If I had the prescription I should not ask your aid to discover itsingredients. "

"And is it in the hope of that notable discovery you have studiedchemistry, electricity, and magnetism? Again I say, Silly boy!"

Margrave did not heed my reply. His face was overcast, gloomy, troubled. 

"That the vital principle is a gas, " said he, abruptly, "I am fullyconvinced. Can that gas be the one which combines caloric with oxygen?"

"Phosoxygen? Sir Humphrey Davy demonstrates that gas not to be, asLavoisier supposed, caloric, but light, combined with oxygen; and hesuggests, not indeed that it is the vital principle itself, but thepabulum of life to organic beings. " [1]

"Does he?" said Margrave, his, face clearing up. "Possibly, possibly, then, here we approach the great secret of secrets. Look you, AllenFenwick: I promise to secure to you unfailing security from all thejealous fears that now torture your heart; if you care for that fame whichto me is not worth the scent of a flower, the balm of a breeze, I willimpart to you a knowledge which, in the hands of ambition, would dwarfinto commonplace the boasted wonders of recognized science. I will doall this, if, in return, but for one month you will give yourself up to myguidance in whatever experiments I ask, no matter how wild they may seemto you. "

"My dear Margrave, I reject your bribes as I would reject the moon and thestars which a child might offer to me in exchange for a toy; but I maygive the child its toy for nothing, and I may test your experiments fornothing some day when I have leisure. "

I did not hear Margrave's answer, for at that moment my servant enteredwith letters. Lilian's hand! Tremblingly, breathlessly, I broke theseal. Such a loving, bright, happy letter; so sweet in its gentle chidingof my wrongful fears! It was implied rather than said that AshleighSumner had proposed and been refused. He had now left the house. Lilianand her mother were coming back; in a few days we should meet. In thisletter were inclosed a few lines from Mrs. Ashleigh. She was moreexplicit about my rival than Lilian had been. If no allusion to hisattentions had been made to me before, it was from a delicateconsideration for myself. Mrs. Ashleigh said that "the young man hadheard from L---- of our engagement, and--disbelieved it;" but, as Mrs. Poyntz had so shrewdly predicted, hurried at once to the avowal of his ownattachment, and the offer of his own hand. On Lilian's refusal his pridehad been deeply mortified. He had gone away manifestly in more anger thansorrow. 

 "Lady Delafield, dear Margaret Poyntz's aunt, had been most kind in trying to soothe Lady Haughton's disappointment, which was rudely expressed, --so rudely, " added Mrs. Ashleigh, "that it gives us an excuse to leave sooner than had been proposed, --which I am very glad of. Lady Delafield feels much for Mr. Sumner; has invited him to visit her at a place she has near Worthing. She leaves to-morrow in order to receive him; promises to reconcile him to our rejection, which, as he was my poor Gilbert's heir, and was very friendly at first, would be a great relief to my mind. Lilian is well, and so happy at the thoughts of coining back. "

When I lifted my eyes from these letters I was as a new man, and the earthseemed a new earth. I felt as if I had realized Margrave's idledreams, --as if youth could never fade, love could never grow cold. 

"You care for no secrets of mine at this moment, " said Margrave, abruptly. 

"Secrets!" I murmured; "none now are worth knowing. I am loved! I amloved!"

"I bide my time, " said Margrave; and as my eyes met his, I saw there alook I had never seen in those eyes before, sinister, wrathful, menacing. He turned away, went out through the sash-door of the study; and as hepassed towards the fields under the luxuriant chestnut-trees, I heard hismusical, barbaric chant, --the song by which the serpent-charmer charms theserpent, --sweet, so sweet, the very birds on the boughs hushed their carolas if to listen. 

[1] See Sir Humphrey Davy on Heat, Light, and the Combinations of Light

CHAPTER XXX. 

I called that day on Mrs. Poyntz, and communicated to her the purport ofthe glad news I had received. 

She was still at work on the everlasting knitting, her firm fingerslinking mesh into mesh as she listened; and when I had done, she laid herskein deliberately down, and said, in her favourite characteristicformula, --

"So at last?--that is settled!"

She rose and paced the room as men are apt to do in reflection, womenrarely need such movement to aid their thoughts; her eyes were fixed onthe floor, and one hand was lightly pressed on the palm of the other, --thegesture of a musing reasoner who is approaching the close of a difficultcalculation. 

At length she paused, fronting me, and said dryly, --

"Accept my congratulations. Life smiles on you now; guard that smile, andwhen we meet next, may we be even firmer friends than we are now!"

"When we meet next, --that will be to-night--you surely go to the mayor'sgreat ball? All the Hill descends to Low Town to-night. "

"No; we are obliged to leave L---- this afternoon; in less than two hourswe shall be gone, --a family engagement. We may be weeks away; you willexcuse me, then, if I take leave of you so unceremoniously. Stay, amotherly word of caution. That friend of yours, Mr. Margrave! Moderateyour intimacy with him; and especially after you are married. There is inthat stranger, of whom so little is known, a something which I cannotcomprehend, --a something that captivates and yet revolts. I find himdisturbing my thoughts, perplexing my conjectures, haunting myfancies, --I, plain woman of the world! Lilian is imaginative; beware ofher imagination, even when sure of her heart. Beware of Margrave. Thesooner he quits L---- the better, believe me, for your peace of mind. Adieu! I must prepare for our journey. "

"That woman, " muttered I, on quitting her house, "seems to have somestrange spite against my poor Lilian, ever seeking to rouse my owndistrust of that exquisite nature which has just given me such proof ofits truth. And yet--and yet--is that woman so wrong here? True!Margrave with his wild notions, his strange beauty!--true--true--he mightdangerously encourage that turn for the mystic and visionary whichdistresses me in Lilian. Lilian should not know him. How induce him toleave L----? Ah, those experiments on which he asks my assistance! Imight commence them when he comes again, and then invent some excusetosend him for completer tests to the famous chemists of Paris or Berlin. "

CHAPTER XXXI. 

It is the night of the mayor's ball! The guests are assembling fast;county families twelve miles round have been invited, as well as theprincipal families of the town. All, before proceeding to the room setapart for the dance, moved in procession through the museum, --homage toscience before pleasure!

The building was brilliantly lighted, and the effect was striking, perhapsbecause singular and grotesque. There, amidst stands of flowers andevergreens, lit up with coloured lamps, were grouped the deadrepresentatives of races all inferior--some deadly--to man. The fancy ofthe ladies had been permitted to decorate and arrange these types of theanimal world. The tiger glared with glass eyes from amidst artificialreeds and herbage, as from his native jungle; the grisly white bear peeredfrom a mimic iceberg. There, in front, stood the sage elephant, facing ahideous hippopotamus; whilst an anaconda twined its long spire round thestem of some tropical tree in zinc. In glass cases, brought into fulllight by festooned lamps, were dread specimens of the reptilerace, --scorpion and vampire, and cobra capella, with insects of gorgeoushues, not a few of them with venomed stings. 

But the chief boast of the collection was in the varieties of the GenusSimia, --baboons and apes, chimpanzees, with their human visage, mockeriesof man, from the dwarf monkeys perched on boughs lopped from the mayor'sshrubberies, to the formidable ourangoutang, leaning on his huge club. 

Every one expressed to the mayor admiration, to each other antipathy, forthis unwonted and somewhat ghastly, though instructive, addition to therevels of a ballroom. 

Margrave, of course, was there, and seemingly quite at home, gliding fromgroup to group of gayly-dressed ladies, and brilliant with a childisheagerness to play off the showman. Many of these grim fellow-creatures hedeclared he had seen, played, or fought with. He had something true orfalse to say about each. In his high spirits he contrived to make thetiger move, and imitated the hiss of the terribly anaconda. All that hedid had its grace, its charm; and the buzz of admiration and theflattering glances of ladies' eyes followed him wherever he moved. 

However, there was a general feeling of relief when the mayor led the wayfrom the museum into the ballroom. In provincial parties guests arrivepretty much within the same hour, and so few who had once paid theirrespects to the apes and serpents, the hippopotamus and the tiger, weredisposed to repeat the visit, that long before eleven o'clock the museumwas as free from the intrusion of human life as the wilderness in whichits dead occupants had been born. 

I had gone my round through the rooms, and, little disposed to be social, had crept into the retreat of a window-niche, pleased to think myselfscreened by its draperies, --not that I was melancholy, far from it; forthe letter I had received that morning from Lilian had raised my wholebeing into a sovereignty of happiness high beyond the reach of the youngpleasure-hunters, whose voices and laughter blended with that vulgarmusic. 

To read her letter again I had stolen to my nook, and now, sure that nonesaw me kiss it, I replaced it in my bosom. I looked through the partedcurtain; the room was comparatively empty; but there, through the openfolding-doors, I saw the gay crowd gathered round the dancers, and thereagain, at right angles, a vista along the corridor afforded a glimpse ofthe great elephant in the deserted museum. 

Presently I heard, close beside me, my host's voice. 

"Here's a cool corner, a pleasant sofa, you can have it all to yourself. What an honour to receive you under my roof, and on this interestingoccasion! Yes, as you say, there are great changes in L---- since youleft us. Society has much improved. I must look about and find somepersons to introduce to you. Clever! oh, I know your tastes. We have awonderful man, --a new doctor. Carries all before him; very highcharacter, too; good old family, greatly looked up to, even apart from hisprofession. Dogmatic a little, --a Sir Oracle, --'Lets no dog bark;' youremember the quotation, --Shakspeare. Where on earth is he? My dear SirPhilip, I am sure you would enjoy his conversation. "

Sir Philip! Could it be Sir Philip Derval to whom the mayor was giving aflattering yet scarcely propitiatory description of myself? Curiositycombined with a sense of propriety in not keeping myself an unsuspectedlistener; I emerged from the curtain, but silently, and reached the centreof the room before the mayor perceived me. He then came up to me eagerly, linked his arm in mine, and leading me to a gentleman seated on a sofa, close by the window I had quitted, said, --

"Doctor, I must present you to Sir Philip Derval, just returned toEngland, and not six hours in L----. If you would like to see the museumagain, Sir Philip, the doctor, I am sure, will accompany you. "

"No, I thank you; it is painful to me at present to see, even under yourroof, the collection which my poor dear friend, Dr. Lloyd, was so proudlybeginning to form when I left these parts. "

"Ay, Sir Philip, Dr. Lloyd was a worthy man in his way, but sadly duped inhis latter years; took to mesmerism, only think! But our young doctorhere showed him up, I can tell you. "

Sir Philip, who had acknowledged my first introduction to his acquaintanceby the quiet courtesy with which a well-bred man goes through a ceremonythat custom enables him to endure with equal ease and indifference, nowevinced by a slight change of manner how little the mayor's reference tomy dispute with Dr. Lloyd advanced me in his good opinion. He turned awaywith a bow more formal than his first one, and said calmly, "I regret to hear that a man so simple-minded and so sensitive as Dr. Lloyd should have provoked an encounter in which I can well conceive himto have been worsted. With your leave, Mr. Mayor, I will look into yourballroom. I may perhaps find there some old acquantances. "

He walked towards the dancers, and the mayor, linking his arm in mine, followed close behind, saying in his loud hearty tones, --

"Come along, you too, Dr. Fenwick, my girls are there; you have not spokento them yet. "

Sir Philip, who was then half way across the room, turned round abruptly, and, looking me full in the face, said, --

"Fenwick, is your name Fenwick, --Allen Fenwick?"

"That is my name, Sir Philip. "

"Then permit me to shake you by the hand; you are no stranger, and no mereacquaintance to me. Mr. Mayor, we will look into your ballroom later; donot let us keep you now from your other guests. "

The mayor, not in the least offended by being thus summarily dismissed, smiled, walked on, and was soon lost amongst the crowd. 

Sir Philip, still retaining my hand, reseated himself on the sofa, and Itook my place by his side. The room was still deserted; now and then astraggler from the ballroom looked in for a moment, and then saunteredback to the central place of attraction. 

"I ain trying to guess, " said I, "how my name should be known to you. Possibly you may, in some visit to the Lakes, have known my father?"

"No; I know none of your name but yourself, --if, indeed, as I doubt not, you are the Allen Fenwick to whom I owe no small obligation. You were amedical student at Edinburgh in the year ----?"

"Yes. "

"So! At that time there was also at Edinburgh a young man, named RichardStrahan. He lodged in a fourth flat in the Old Town. "

"I remember him very well. "

"And you remember, also, that a fire broke out at night in the house inwhich he lodged; that when it was discovered there seemed no hope ofsaving him. The flames wrapped the lower part of the house; the staircasehad given way. A boy, scarcely so old as himself, was the only humanbeing in the crowd who dared to scale the ladder that even then scarcelyreached the windows from which the smoke rolled in volumes; that boypenetrated into the room, found the inmate almost insensible, rallied, supported, dragged him to the window, got him on the ladder, --saved hislife then: and his life later, by nursing with a woman's tenderness, through the fever caused by terror and excitement, the fellow-creature hehad rescued by a man's daring. The name of that gallant student was AllenFenwick, and Richard Strahan is my nearest living relation. Are wefriends now?"

I answered confusedly. I had almost forgotten the circumstances referredto. Richard Strahan had not been one of my more intimate companions, andI bad never seen nor heard of him since leaving college. I inquired whathad become of him. 

"He is at the Scotch Bar, " said Sir Philip, "and of course withoutpractice. I understand that he has fair average abilities, but noapplication. If I am rightly informed, he is, however, a thoroughlyhonourable, upright man, and of an affectionate and grateful disposition. "

"I can answer for all you have said in his praise. He had the qualitiesyou name too deeply rooted in youth to have lost them now. "

Sir Philip remained for some moments in a musing silence; and I tookadvantage of that silence to examine him with more minute attention than Ihad done before, much as the first sight of him had struck me. 

He was somewhat below the common height, --so delicately formed that onemight call him rather fragile than slight. But in his carriage and airthere was remarkable dignity. His countenance was at direct variance withhis figure; for as delicacy was the attribute of the last, so power wasunmistakably the characteristic of the first. He looked fully the age hissteward had ascribed to him, --about forty-eight; at a superficial glance, more, for his hair was prematurely white, --not gray, but white as snow. But his eyebrows were still jet black, and his eyes, equally dark, wereserenely bright. His forehead was magnificent, --lofty and spacious, andwith only one slight wrinkle between the brows. His complexion wassunburnt, showing no sign of weak health. The outline of his lips wasthat which I have often remarked in men accustomed to great dangers, andcontracting in such dangers the habit of self-reliance, --firm and quiet, compressed without an effort. And the power of this very noblecountenance was not intimidating, not aggressive; it was mild, it wasbenignant. A man oppressed by some formidable tyranny, and despairing tofind a protector, would, on seeing that face, have said, "Here is one whocan protect me, and who will!"

Sir Philip was the first to break the silence. 

"I have so many relations scattered over England, that fortunately not oneof them can venture to calculate on my property if I die childless, andtherefore not one of them can feel himself injured when, a few weekshence, he shall read in the newspapers that Philip Derval is married. Butfor Richard Strahan at least, though I never saw him, I must do somethingbefore the newspapers make that announcement. His sister was very dear tome. "

"Your neighbours, Sir Philip, will rejoice at your marriage, since, Ipresume, it may induce you to settle amongst them at Derval Court. "

"At Derval Court! No! I shall not settle there. " Again he paused amoment or so, and then went on: "I have long lived a wandering life, andin it learned much that the wisdom of cities cannot teach. I return to mynative land with a profound conviction that the happiest life is the lifemost in common with all. I have gone out of my way to do what I deemedgood, and to avert or mitigate what appeared to me evil. I pause now andask myself, whether the most virtuous existence be not that in whichvirtue flows spontaneously from the springs of quiet everyday action; whena man does good without restlessly seeking it, does good unconsciously, simply because he is good and he lives. Better, perhaps, for me, if I hadthought so long ago! And now I come back to England with the intention ofmarrying, late in life though it be, and with such hopes of happiness asany matter-of-fact man may form. But my hope will not be at DervalCourt. I shall reside either in London or its immediate neighbourhood, and seek to gather round me minds by which I can correct, if I cannotconfide to them, the knowledge I myself have acquired. "

"Nay, if, as I have accidentally heard, you are fond of scientificpursuits, I cannot wonder, that after so long an absence from England, youshould feel interest in learning what new discoveries have been made, whatnew ideas are unfolding the germs of discoveries yet to be. But, pardonme, if in answer to your concluding remark, I venture to say that no mancan hope to correct any error in his own knowledge, unless he has thecourage to confide the error to those who can correct. La Place hassaid, 'Tout se tient dans le chaine immense des verites;' and the mistakewe make in some science we have specially cultivated is often only to beseen by the light of a separate science as specially cultivated byanother. Thus, in the investigation of truth, frank exposition tocongenial minds is essential to the earnest seeker. "

"I am pleased with what you say, " said Sir Philip, "and I shall be stillmore pleased to find in you the very confidant I require. But what wasyour controversy with my old friend, Dr. Lloyd? Do I understand our hostrightly, that it related to what in Europe has of late days obtained thename of mesmerism?"

I had conceived a strong desire to conciliate the good opinion of a manwho had treated me with so singular and so familiar a kindness, and it wassincerely that I expressed my regret at the acerbity with which I hadassailed Dr. Lloyd; but of his theories and pretensions I could notdisguise my contempt. I enlarged on the extravagant fallacies involved ina fabulous "clairvoyance, " which always failed when put to plain test bysober-minded examiners. I did not deny the effects of imagination oncertain nervous constitutions. "Mesmerism could cure nobody; credulitycould cure many. There was the well-known story of the old woman tried asa witch; she cured agues by a charm. She owned the impeachment, and wasready to endure gibbet or stake for the truth of her talisman, --more thana mesmerist would for the truth of his passes! And the charm was a scrollof gibberish sewn in an old bag and given to the woman in a freak by thejudge himself when a young scamp on the circuit. But the charm cured?Certainly; just as mesmerism cures. Fools believed in it. Faith, thatmoves mountains, may well cure agues. "

Thus I ran on, supporting my views with anecdote and facts, to which SirPhilip listened with placid gravity. 

When I had come to an end he said: "Of mesmerism, as practised in Europe, I know nothing except by report. I can well understand that medical menmay hesitate to admit it amongst the legitimate resources of orthodoxpathology; because, as I gather from what you and others say of itspractice, it must, at the best, be far too uncertain in its application tosatisfy the requirements of science. Yet an examination of itspretensions may enable you to perceive the truth that lies hid in thepowers ascribed to witchcraft; benevolence is but a weak agency comparedto malignity; magnetism perverted to evil may solve half the riddles ofsorcery. On this, however, I say no more at present. But as to thatwhich you appear to reject as the most preposterous and incrediblepretension of the mesmerists, and which you designate by the word'clairvoyance, ' it is clear to me that you have never yourself witnessedeven those very imperfect exhibitions which you decide at once to beimposture. I say imperfect, because it is only a limited number ofpersons whom the eye or the passes of the mesmerist can effect; and bysuch means, unaided by other means, it is rarely indeed that the magneticsleep advances beyond the first vague shadowy twilight-dawn of thatcondition to which only in its fuller developments I would apply the nameof 'trance. ' But still trance is as essential a condition of being assleep or as waking, having privileges peculiar to itself. By means withinthe range of the science that explores its nature and its laws, trance, unlike the clairvoyance you describe, is producible in every human being, however unimpressible to mere mesmerism. "

"Producible in every human being! Pardon me if I say that I will give anyenchanter his own terms who will produce that effect upon me. "

"Will you? You consent to have the experiment tried on yourself?"

"Consent most readily. "

"I will remember that promise. But to return to the subject. By the word'trance' I do not mean exclusively the spiritual trance of theAlexandrian Platonists. There is one kind of trance, --that to which allhuman beings are susceptible, --in which the soul has no share: for of thiskind of trance, and it was of this I spoke, some of the inferior animalsare susceptible; and, therefore, trance is no more a proof of soul than isthe clairvoyance of the mesmerists, or the dream of our ordinary sleep, which last has been called a proof of soul, though any man who has kept adog must have observed that dogs dream as vividly as we do. But in thistrance there is an extraordinary cerebral activity, a projectile forcegiven to the mind, distinct from the soul, by which it sends forth its ownemanations to a distance in spite of material obstacles, just as a flower, in an altered condition of atmosphere, sends forth the particles of itsaroma. This should not surprise you. Your thought travels over land andsea in your waking state; thought, too, can travel in trance, and intrance may acquire an intensified force. There is, however, another kindof trance which is truly called spiritual, a trance much more rare, andin which the soul entirely supersedes the mere action of the mind. "

"Stay!" said I; "you speak of the soul as something distinct from themind. What the soul may be, I cannot pretend to conjecture; but I cannotseparate it from the intelligence!"

"Can you not? A blow on the brain can destroy the intelligence! Do youthink it can destroy the soul?

 'From Marlbro's eyes the tears of dotage flow, And Swift expires, a driveller and a show. '

"Towards the close of his life even Kant's giant intellect left him. Doyou suppose that in these various archetypes of intellectual man the soulwas worn out by the years that loosened the strings, or made tuneless thekeys, of the perishing instrument on which the mind must rely for allnotes of its music? If you cannot distinguish the operations of the mindfrom the essence of the soul, I know not by what rational inductions youarrive at the conclusion that the soul is imperishable. "

I remained silent. Sir Philip fixed on me his dark eyes quietly andsearchingly, and, after a short pause, said, --

"Almost every known body in nature is susceptible of three several statesof existence, --the solid, the liquid, the aeriform. These conditionsdepend on the quantity of heat they contain. The same object at onemoment may be liquid; at the next moment solid; at the next aeriform. Thewater that flows before your gaze may stop consolidated into ice, orascend into air as a vapour. Thus is man susceptible of three states ofexistence, --the animal, the mental, the spiritual; and according as he isbrought into relation or affinity with that occult agency of the wholenatural world, which we familiarly call heat, and which no science has yetexplained, which no scale can weigh, and no eye discern, one or the otherof these three states of being prevails, or is subjected. "

I still continued silent, for I was unwilling discourteously to say to astranger so much older than myself, that he seemed to me to reverse allthe maxims of the philosophy to which he made pretence, in foundingspeculations audacious and abstruse upon unanalogous comparisons thatwould have been fantastic even in a poet. And Sir Philip, after anotherpause, resumed with a half smile, --

"After what I have said, it will perhaps not very much surpriseyou when I add that but for my belief in the powers I ascribe to trance, we should not be known to each other at this moment. "

"How? Pray explain!"

"Certain circumstances, which I trust to relate to you in detailhereafter, have imposed on me the duty to discover, and to bring humanlaws to bear upon, a creature armed with terrible powers of evil. Thismonster, for without metaphor, monster it is, not man like ourselves, has, by arts superior to those of ordinary fugitives, however dexterous inconcealment, hitherto for years eluded my research. Through the tranceof an Arab child, who, in her waking state, never heard of his existence, I have learned that this being is in England, is in L----. I am here toencounter him. I expect to do so this very night, and under this veryroof. "

"Sir Philip!"

"And if you wonder, as you well may, why I have been talking to you withthis startling unreserve, know that the same Arab child, on whom I thusimplicitly rely, informs me that your life is mixed up with that of thebeing I seek to unmask and disarm, --to be destroyed by his arts or hisagents, or to combine in the causes by which the destroyer himself shallbe brought to destruction. "

"My life!--your Arab child named me, Allen Fenwick?"

"My Arab child told me that the person in whom I should thus naturally seekan ally was he who had saved the life of the man whom I then meant for myheir, if I died unmarried and childless. She told me that I should not bemany hours in this town, which she described minutely, before you would bemade known to me. She described this house, with yonder lights, and yondancers. In her trance she saw us sitting together, as we now sit. Iaccepted the invitation of our host, when he suddenly accosted me onentering the town, confident that I should meet you here, without evenasking whether a person of your name were a resident in the place; and nowyou know why I have so freely unbosomed myself of much that might wellmake you, a physician, doubt the soundness of my understanding. The sameinfant, whose vision has been realized up to this moment, has warned mealso that I am here at great peril. What that peril may be I havedeclined to learn, as I have ever declined to ask from the future whataffects only my own life on this earth. That life I regard with supremeindifference, conscious that I have only to discharge, while it lasts, theduties for which it is bestowed on me, to the best of my imperfect power;and aware that minds the strongest and souls the purest may fall into thesloth habitual to predestinarians, if they suffer the action due to thepresent hour to be awed and paralyzed by some grim shadow on the future!It is only where, irrespectively of aught that can menace myself, a lightnot struck out of my own reason can guide me to disarm evil or minister togood, that I feel privileged to avail myself of those mirrors on whichthings, near and far, reflect themselves calm and distinct as the banksand the mountain peak are reflected in the glass of a lake. Here, then, under this roof, and by your side, I shall behold him who--Lo! the momenthas come, --I behold him now!"

As he spoke these last words, Sir Philip had risen, and, startled by hisaction and voice, I involuntarily rose too. Resting one hand on myshoulder, he pointed with the other towards the threshold of the ballroom. There, the prominent figure of a gay group--the sole male amidst afluttering circle of silks and lawn, of flowery wreaths, of femaleloveliness and female frippery--stood the radiant image of Margrave. Hiseyes were not turned towards us. He was looking down, and his light laughcame soft, yet ringing, through the general murmur. 

I turned my astonished gaze back to Sir Philip; yes, unmistakably it wason Margrave that his look was fixed. Impossible to associate crime withthe image of that fair youth! Eccentric notions, fantastic speculations, vivacious egotism, defective benevolence, --yes. But crime! No!impossible!

"Impossible, " I said aloud. As I spoke, the group had moved on. Margravewas no longer in sight. At the same moment some other guests came fromthe ballroom, and seated themselves near us. 

Sir Philip looked round, and, observing the deserted museum at the end ofthe corridor, drew me into it. 

When we were alone, he said in a voice quick and low, but decided, --

"It is of importance that I should convince you at once of the nature ofthat prodigy which is more hostile to mankind than the wolf is to thesheepfold. No words of mine could at present suffice to clear your sightfrom the deception which cheats it. I must enable you to judge foryourself. It must be now and here. He will learn this night, if he hasnot learned already, that I am in the town. Dim and confused though hismemories of myself may be, they are memories still; and he well knowswhat cause he has to dread me. I must put another in possession of hissecret. Another, and at once! For all his arts will be brought to bearagainst me, and I cannot foretell their issue. Go, then; enter that giddycrowd, select that seeming young man, bring him hither. Take care onlynot to mention my name; and when here, turn the key in the door, so as toprevent interruption, --five minutes will suffice. "

"Am I sure that I guess whom you mean? The young light-hearted man, knownin this place under the name of Margrave? The young man with the radianteyes, and the curls of a Grecian statue?"

"The same; him whom I pointed out. Quick, bring him hither. "

My curiosity was too much roused to disobey. Had I conceived thatMargrave, in the heat of youth, had committed some offence which placedhim in danger of the law and in the power of Sir Philip Derval, Ipossessed enough of the old borderer's black-mail loyalty to have giventhe man whose hand I had familiarly clasped a hint and a help to escape. But all Sir Philip's talk had been so out of the reach of common-sense, that I rather expected to see him confounded by some egregious illusionthan Margrave exposed to any well-grounded accusation. All, then, that Ifelt as I walked into the ballroom and approached Margrave was thatcuriosity which, I think, any one of my readers will acknowledge that, inmy position, he himself would have felt. 

Margrave was standing near the dancers, not joining them, but talking witha young couple in the ring. I drew him aside. 

"Come with me for a few minutes into the museum; I wish to talk to you. "

"What about, --an experiment?"

"Yes, an experiment. "

"Then I am at your service. "

In a minute more, he had followed me into the desolate dead museum. Ilooked round, but did not see Sir Philip. 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

MARGRAVE threw himself on a seat just under the great anaconda; I closedand locked the door. When I had done so, my eye fell on the young man'sface, and I was surprised to see that it had lost its colour; that itshowed great anxiety, great distress; that his hands were visiblytrembling. 

"What is this?" he said in feeble tones, and raising himself half from hisseat as if with great effort. "Help me up! come away! Something in thisroom is hostile to me, hostile, overpowering! What can it be?"

"Truth and my presence, " answered a stern, low voice; and Sir PhilipDerval, whose slight form the huge bulk of the dead elephant had beforeobscured from my view, came suddenly out from the shadow into the fullrays of the lamps which lit up, as if for Man's revel, that mockingcatacomb for the playmates of Nature which he enslaves for his service orslays for his sport. As Sir Philip spoke and advanced, Margrave sank backinto his seat, shrinking, collapsing, nerveless; terror the most abjectexpressed in his staring eyes and parted lips. On the other hand, thesimple dignity of Sir Philip Derval's bearing, and the mild power of hiscountenance, were alike inconceivably heightened. A change had come overthe whole man, the more impressive because wholly undefinable. 

Halting opposite Margrave he uttered some words in a language unknown tome, and stretched one hand over the young man's head. Margrave at oncebecame stiff and rigid, as if turned to stone. Sir Philip said to me, --

"Place one of those lamps on the floor, --there, by his feet. "

I took down one of the coloured lamps from the mimic tree round which thehuge anaconda coiled its spires, and placed it as I was told. 

"Take the seat opposite to him, and watch. "

I obeyed. 

Meanwhile, Sir Philip had drawn from his breast-pocket a small steelcasket, and I observed, as he opened it, that the interior was subdividedinto several compartments, each with its separate lid; from one of thesehe took and sprinkled over the flame of the lamp a few grains of a powder, colourless and sparkling as diamond dust. In a second or so, a delicateperfume, wholly unfamiliar to my sense, rose from the lamp. 

"You would test the condition of trance; test it, and in the spirit. "

And, as he spoke, his hand rested lightly on my head. Hitherto, amidst asurprise not unmixed with awe, I had preserved a certain defiance, acertain distrust. I had been, as it were, on my guard. 

But as those words were spoken, as that hand rested on my head, as thatperfume arose from the lamp, all power of will deserted me. My firstsensation was that of passive subjugation; but soon I was aware of astrange intoxicating effect from the odour of the lamp, round which therenow played a dazzling vapour. The room swam before me. Like a manoppressed by a nightmare, I tried to move, to cry out, feeling that to doso would suffice to burst the thrall that bound me: in vain. 

A time that seemed to me inexorably long, but which, as I foundafterwards, could only have occupied a few seconds, elapsed in thispreliminary state, which, however powerless, was not without a vagueluxurious sense of delight. And then suddenly came pain, --pain, that inrapid gradations passed into a rending agony. Every bone, sinew, nerve, fibre of the body, seemed as if wrenched open, and as if some hithertounconjectured Presence in the vital organization were forcing itself tolight with all the pangs of travail. The veins seemed swollen tobursting, the heart labouring to maintain its action by fierce spasms. Ifeel in this description how language fails me. Enough that the anguish Ithen endured surpassed all that I have ever experienced of physical pain. This dreadful interval subsided as suddenly as it had commenced. I feltas if a something undefinable by any name had rushed from me, and in thatrush that a struggle was over. I was sensible of the passive bliss whichattends the release from torture, and then there grew on me a wonderfulcalm, and, in that calm, a consciousness of some lofty intelligenceimmeasurably beyond that which human memory gathers from earthlyknowledge. I saw before me the still rigid form of Margrave, and my sightseemed, with ease, to penetrate through its covering of flesh, and tosurvey the mechanism of the whole interior being. 

"View that tenement of clay which now seems so fair, as it was when I lastbeheld it, three years ago, in the house of Haroun of Aleppo!"

I looked, and gradually, and as shade after shade falls on the mountainside, while the clouds gather, and the sun vanishes at last, so the formand face on which I looked changed from exuberant youth into infirm oldage, --the discoloured wrinkled skin, the bleared dim eye, the flaccidmuscles, the brittle sapless bones. Nor was the change that of age alone;the expression of the countenance had passed into gloomy discontent, andin every furrow a passion or a vice had sown the seeds of grief. 

And the brain now opened on my sight, with all its labyrinth of cells. Iseemed to have the clew to every winding in the maze. 

I saw therein a moral world, charred and ruined, as, in some fable I haveread, the world of the moon is described to be; yet withal it was a brainof magnificent formation. The powers abused to evil had been originallyof rare order, --imagination, and scope, the energies that dare, thefaculties that discover. But the moral part of the brain had failed todominate the mental, --defective veneration of what is good or great;cynical disdain of what is right and just; in fine, a great intellectfirst misguided, then perverted, and now falling with the decay of thebody into ghastly but imposing ruins, --such was the world of that brainas it had been three years ago. And still continuing to gaze thereon, Iobserved three separate emanations of light, --the one of a pale red hue, the second of a pale azure, the third a silvery spark. 

The red light, which grew paler and paler as I looked, undulated from thebrain along the arteries, the veins, the nerves. And I murmured tomyself, "Is this the principle of animal life?"

The azure light equally permeated the frame, crossing and uniting with thered, but in a separate and distinct ray, exactly as, in the outer world, aray of light crosses or unites with a ray of heat, though in itself aseparate individual agency. And again I murmured to myself, "Is this theprinciple of intellectual being, directing or influencing that of animallife; with it, yet not of it?"

But the silvery spark! What was that? Its centre seemed the brain; but Icould fix it to no single organ. Nay, wherever I looked through thesystem, it reflected itself as a star reflects itself upon water. And Iobserved that while the red light was growing feebler and feebler, and theazure light was confused, irregular, --now obstructed, now hurrying, nowalmost lost, --the silvery spark was unaltered, un disturbed. Soindependent was it of all which agitated and vexed the frame, that Ibecame strangely aware that if the heart stopped in its action, and thered light died out; if the brain were paralyzed, that energetic mindsmitten into idiotcy, and the azure light wandering objectless as a meteorwanders over the morass, --still that silver spark would shine the same, indestructible by aught that shattered its tabernacle. And I murmured tomyself, "Can that starry spark speak the presence of the soul? Does thesilver light shine within creatures to which no life immortal has beenpromised by Divine Revelation?"

Involuntarily I turned my sight towards the dead forms in the motleycollection, and lo, in my trance or my vision, life returned to themall!--to the elephant and the serpent; to the tiger, the vulture, thebeetle, the moth; to the fish and the polypus, and to yon mockery of manin the giant ape. 

I seemed to see each as it lived in its native realm of earth, or of air, or of water; and the red light played more or less warm through thestructure of each, and the azure light, though duller of hue, seemed toshoot through the red, and communicate to the creatures an intelligencefar inferior indeed to that of man, but sufficing to conduct the currentof their will, and influence the cunning of their instincts. But in none, from the elephant to the moth, from the bird in which brain was thelargest to the hybrid in which life seemed to live as in plants, --in nonewas visible the starry silver spark. I turned my eyes from the creaturesaround, back again to the form cowering under the huge anaconda, and interror at the animation which the carcasses took in the awful illusions ofthat marvellous trance; for the tiger moved as if scenting blood, and tothe eyes of the serpent the dread fascination seemed slowly returning. 

Again I gazed on the starry spark in the form of the man. And I murmuredto myself, "But if this be the soul, why is it so undisturbed andundarkened by the sins which have left such trace and such ravage in theworld of the brain?" And gazing yet more intently on the spark, I becamevaguely aware that it was not the soul, but the halo around the soul, asthe star we see in heaven is not the star itself, but its circle of rays;and if the light itself was undisturbed and undarkened, it was because nosins done in the body could annihilate its essence, nor affect theeternity of its duration. The light was clear within the ruins of itslodgment, because it might pass away, but could not be extinguished. 

But the soul itself in the heart of the light reflected back on my ownsoul within me its ineffable trouble, humiliation, and sorrow; for thoseghastly wrecks of power placed at its sovereign command it wasresponsible, and, appalled by its own sublime fate of duration, was aboutto carry into eternity the account of its mission in time. Yet it seemedthat while the soul was still there, though so forlorn and so guilty, eventhe wrecks around it were majestic. And the soul, whatever sentence itmight merit, was not among the hopelessly lost; for in its remorse and itsshame, it might still have retained what could serve for redemption. AndI saw that the mind was storming the soul, in some terrible rebelliouswar, --all of thought, of passion, of desire, through which the azure lightpoured its restless flow, were surging up round the starry spark, as insiege. And I could not comprehend the war, nor guess what it was that themind demanded the soul to yield. Only the distinction between the two wasmade intelligible by their antagonism. And I saw that the soul, sorelytempted, looked afar for escape from the subjects it had ever so illcontrolled, and who sought to reduce to their vassal the power which hadlost authority as their king. I could feel its terror in the sympathy ofmy own terror, the keenness of my own supplicating pity. I knew that itwas imploring release from the perils it confessed its want of strengthto encounter. And suddenly the starry spark rose from the ruins and thetumult around it, --rose into space and vanished; and where my soul hadrecognized the presence of soul, there was a void. But the red lightburned still, becoming more and more vivid; and as it thus repaired andrecruited its lustre, the whole animal form, which had been so decrepit, grew restored from decay, grew into vigour and youth: and I saw Alargraveas I had seen him in the waking world, the radiant image of animal life inthe beauty of its fairest bloom. 

And over this rich vitality and this symmetric mechanism now reigned only, with the animal life, the mind. The starry light fled and the soulvanished, still was left visible the mind, --mind, by which sensationsconvey and cumulate ideas, and muscles obey volition; mind, as in thoseanimals that have more than the elementary, instincts; mind, as it mightbe in men, were men not immortal. As my eyes, in the Vision, followed theazure light, undulating as before, through the cells of the brain, andcrossing the red amidst the labyrinth of the nerves, I perceived that theessence of that azure light had undergone a change: it had lost thatfaculty of continuous and concentred power by which man improves on theworks of the past, and weaves schemes to be developed in the future ofremote generations; it had lost all sympathy in the past, because it hadlost all conception of a future beyond the grave; it had lost conscience, it had lost remorse; the being it informed was no longer accountablethrough eternity for the employment of time. The azure light was evenmore vivid in certain organs useful to the conservation of existence, asin those organs I had observed it more vivid among some of the inferioranimals than it is in man, --secretiveness, destructiveness, and the readyperception of things immediate to the wants of the day; and the azurelight was brilliant in cerebral cells, where before it had been dark, suchas those which harbour mirthfulness and hope, for there the light wasrecruited by the exuberant health of the joyous animal-being. But it waslead-like, or dim, in the great social organs, through which mansubordinates his own interest to that of his species, and utterly lost inthose through which man is reminded of his duties to the throne of hisMaker. 

In that marvellous penetration with which the Vision endowed me, Iperceived that in this mind, though in energy far superior to many; thoughretaining, from memories of the former existence, the relics of a culturewide and in some things profound; though sharpened and quickened intoformidable, if desultory, force whenever it schemed or aimed at the animalself-conservation which now made its master--impulse or instinct; andthough among the reminiscences of its state before its change were artswhich I could not comprehend, but which I felt were dark and terrible, lending to a will never checked by remorse arms that no healthfulphilosophy has placed in the arsenal of disciplined genius; though themind in itself had an ally in a body as perfect in strength and elasticityas man can take from the favour of nature, --still, I say, I felt that themind wanted the something without which men never could found cities, frame laws, bind together, beautify, exalt the elements of this world, bycreeds that habitually subject them to a reference to another. The antand the bee and the beaver congregate and construct; but they do notimprove. Man improves because the future impels onward that which is notfound in the ant, the bee, and the beaver, --that which was gone from thebeing before me. 

I shrank appalled into myself, covered my face with my hands, and groanedaloud: "Have I ever then doubted that soul is distinct from mind?"

A hand here again touched my forehead, the light in the lamp wasextinguished, I became insensible; and when I recovered I found myselfback in the room in which I had first conversed with Sir Philip Derval, and seated, as before, on the sofa, by his side. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

My recollections of all which I have just attempted to describe weredistinct and vivid; except with respect to time, it seemed to me as ifmany hours must have elapsed since I had entered the museum withMargrave; but the clock on the mantelpiece met my eyes as I turned themwistfully round the room; and I was indeed amazed to perceive that fiveminutes had sufficed for all which it has taken me so long to narrate, andwhich in their transit had hurried me through ideas and emotions so remotefrom anterior experience. 

To my astonishment now succeeded shame and indignation, --shame that I, whohad scoffed at the possibility of the comparatively credible influences ofmesmeric action, should have been so helpless a puppet under the hand ofthe slight fellow-man beside me, and so morbidly impressed byphantasmagorieal illusions; indignation that, by some fumes which hadspecial potency over the brain, I had thus been, as it were, conjured outof my senses; and looking full into the calm face at my side, I said, witha smile to which I sought to convey disdain, --

"I congratulate you, Sir Philip Derval, on having learned in your travelsin the East so expert a familiarity with the tricks of its jugglers. "

"The East has a proverb, " answered Sir Philip, quietly, "that the jugglermay learn much from the dervish, but the dervish can learn nothing fromthe juggler. You will pardon me, however, for the effect produced on youfor a few minutes, whatever the cause of it may be, since it may serve toguard your whole life from calamities, to which it might otherwise havebeen exposed. And however you may consider that which you have justexperienced to be a mere optical illusion, or the figment of a brainsuper-excited by the fumes of a vapour, look within yourself, and tell meif you do not feel an inward and unanswerable conviction that there ismore reason to shun and to fear the creature you left asleep under thedead jaws of the giant serpent, than there would be in the serpent itself, could hunger again move its coils, and venom again arm its fangs. "

I was silent, for I could not deny that that conviction had come to me. 

"Henceforth, when you recover from the confusion or anger which nowdisturbs your impressions, you will be prepared to listen to myexplanations and my recital in a spirit far different from that with whichyou would have received them before you were subjected to the experiment, which, allow me to remind you, you invited and defied. You will now, Itrust, be fitted to become my confidant and my assistant; you will advisewith me how, for the sake of humanity, we should act together against theincarnate lie, the anomalous prodigy which glides through the crowd in theimage of joyous beauty. For the present I quit you. I have anengagement, on worldly affairs, in the town this night. I am staying atL----, which I shall leave for Derval Court tomorrow evening. Come to methere the day after to-morrow, at any hour that may suit you the best. Adieu!"

Here Sir Philip Derval rose and left the room. I made no effort todetain him. My mind was too occupied in striving to recompose itself andaccount for the phenomena that had scared it, and for the strength of theimpressions it still retained. 

I sought to find natural and accountable causes for effects so abnormal. 

Lord Bacon suggests that the ointments with which witches anointedthemselves might have had the effect of stopping the pores and congestingthe rain, and thus impressing the sleep of the unhappy dupes of their ownimagination with dreams so vivid that, on waking, they were firmlyconvinced that they had been borne through the air to the Sabbat. 

I remember also having heard a distinguished French traveller--whoseveracity was unquestionable--say, that he had witnessed extraordinaryeffects produced on the sensorium by certain fumigations used by anAfrican pretender to magic. A person, of however healthy a brain;subjected to the influence of these fumigations, was induced to believethat he saw the most frightful apparitions. 

However extraordinary such effects, they were not incredible, --not atvariance with our notions of the known laws of nature. And to the vapouror the odours which a powder applied to a lamp had called forth, I was, therefore, prepared to ascribe properties similar to those which Bacon'sconjecture ascribed to the witches' ointment, and the French traveller tothe fumigations of the African conjuror. 

But, as I came to that conclusion, I was seized with an intense curiosityto examine for myself those chemical agencies with which Sir Philip Dervalappeared so familiar; to test the contents in that mysterious casket ofsteel. I also felt a curiosity no less eager, but more, in spite ofmyself, intermingled with fear, to learn all that Sir Philip had tocommunicate of the past history of Margrave. I could but suppose that theyoung man must indeed be a terrible criminal, for a person of years sograve, and station so high, to intimate accusations so vaguely dark, andto use means so extraordinary, in order to enlist my imagination ratherthan my reason against a youth in whom there appeared none of the signswhich suspicion interprets into guilt. 

While thus musing, I lifted my eyes and saw Margrave himself there atthe threshold of the ballroom, --there, where Sir Philip had first pointedhim out as the criminal he had come to L---- to seek and disarm; andnow, as then, Margrave was the radiant centre of a joyous group. Not theyoung boy-god Iacchus, amidst his nymphs, could, in Grecian frieze orpicture, have seemed more the type of the sportive, hilarious vitality ofsensuous nature. He must have passed unobserved by me, in mypreoccupation of thought, from the museum and across the room in which Isat; and now there was as little trace in that animated countenance of theterror it had exhibited at Sir Philip's approach, as of the change it hadundergone in my trance or my fantasy. 

But he caught sight of me, left his young companions, came gayly to myside. 

"Did you not ask me to go with you into that museum about half an hourago, or did I dream that I went with you?"

"Yes; you went with me into that museum. "

"Then pray what dull theme did you select to set me asleep there?"

I looked hard at him, and made no reply. Somewhat to my relief, I nowheard my host's voice, --

"Why, Fenwick, what has become of Sir Philip Derval?"

"He has left; he had business. " And, as I spoke, again I looked hard onMargrave. 

His countenance now showed a change; not surprise, not dismay, but rathera play of the lip, a flash of the eye, that indicated complacency, --eventriumph. 

"So! Sir Philip Derval! He is in L----; he has been here to-night? So!as I expected. "

"Did you expect it?" said our host. "No one else did. Who could havetold you?"

"The movements of men so distinguished need never take us by surprise. Iknew he was in Paris the other day. It is natural eno' that he shouldcome here. I was prepared for his coming. "

Margrave here turned away towards the window, which he threw open andlooked out. 

"There is a storm in the air, " said he, as he continued to gaze into thenight. 

Was it possible that Margrave was so wholly unconscious of what had passedin the museum as to include in oblivion even the remembrance of Sir PhilipDerval's presence before he had been rendered insensible, or laid asleep?Was it now only for the first time that he learned of Sir Philip's arrivalin L----, and visit to that house? Was there any intimation of menace inhis words and his aspect?

I felt that the trouble of my thoughts communicated itself to mycountenance and manner; and, longing for solitude and fresh air, I quittedthe house. When I found myself in the street I turned round and sawMargrave still standing at the open window, but he did not appear tonotice me; his eyes seemed fixed abstractedly on space. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

I walked on slowly and with the downcast brow of a man absorbed inmeditation. I had gained the broad place in which the main streets of thetown converged, when I was overtaken by a violent storm of rain. Isought shelter under the dark archway of that entrance to the district ofAbbey Hill which was still called Monk's Gate. The shadow within the archwas so deep that I was not aware that I had a companion till I beard myown name, close at my side. I recognized the voice before I coulddistinguish the form of Sir Philip Derval. 

"The storm will soon be over, " said he, quietly. "I saw it coming on intime. I fear you neglected the first warning of those sable clouds, andmust be already drenched. "

I made no reply, but moved involuntarily away towards the mouth of thearch. 

"I see that you cherish a grudge against me!" resumed Sir Philip. "Areyou, then, by nature vindictive?"

Somewhat softened by the friendly tone of this reproach, I answered, halfin jest, half in earnest, --

"You must own, Sir Philip, that I have some little reason for theuncharitable anger your question imputes to me. But I can forgive you, onone condition. "

"What is that?"

"The possession for half an hour of that mysterious steel casket which youcarry about with you, and full permission to analyze and test itscontents. "

"Your analysis of the contents, " returned Sir Philip, dryly, "would leaveyou as ignorant as before of the uses to which they can be applied; but Iwill own to you frankly, that it is my intention to select some confidantamong men of science, to whom I may safely communicate the wonderfulproperties which certain essences in that casket possess. I invite youracquaintance, nay, your friendship, in the hope that I may find such aconfidant in you. But the casket contains other combinations, which, ifwasted, could not be resupplied, --at least by any process which the greatMaster from whom I received them placed within reach of my knowledge. Inthis they resemble the diamond; when the chemist has found that thediamond affords no other substance by its combustion than purecarbonic-acid gas, and that the only chemical difference between thecostliest diamond and a lump of pure charcoal is a proportion of hydrogenless than 1/100000 part of the weight of the substance, can the chemistmake you a diamond?

"These, then, the more potent, but also the more perilous of the casket'scontents, shall be explored by no science, submitted to no test. They arethe keys to masked doors in the ramparts of Nature, which no mortal canpass through without rousing dread sentries never seen upon this side herwall. The powers they confer are secrets locked in my breast, to be lostin my grave; as the casket which lies on my breast shall not betransferred to the hands of another, till all the rest of my earthlypossessions pass away with my last breath in life and my first ineternity. "

"Sir Philip Derval, " said I, struggling against the appeals to fancy or toawe, made in words so strange, uttered in a tone of earnest conviction, and heard amidst the glare of the lightning, the howl of the winds, andthe roll of the thunder, --"Sir Philip Derval, you accost me in a languagewhich, but for my experience of the powers at your command, I should hearwith the contempt that is due to the vaunts of a mountebank, or the pitywe give to the morbid beliefs of his dupe. As it is, I decline theconfidence with which you would favour me, subject to the conditions whichit seems you would impose. My profession abandons to quacks all drugswhich may not be analyzed, all secrets which may not be fearlessly told. I cannot visit you at Derval Court. I cannot trust myself, voluntarily, again in the power of a man, who has arts of which I may not examine thenature, by which he can impose on my imagination and steal away myreason. "

"Reflect well before you decide, " said Sir Philip, with a solemnity thatwas stern. "If you refuse to be warned and to be armed by me, your reasonand your imagination will alike be subjected to influences which I canonly explain by telling you that there is truth in those immemoriallegends which depose to the existence of magic. "

"Magic!"

"There is magic of two kinds, --the dark and evil, appertaining towitchcraft or necromancy; the pure and beneficent, which is butphilosophy, applied to certain mysteries in Nature remote from the beatentracks of science, but which deepened the wisdom of ancient sages, and canyet unriddle the myths of departed races. "

"Sir Philip, " I said, with impatient and angry interruption, "if you thinkthat a jargon of this kind be worthy a man of your acquirements andstation, it is at least a waste of time to address it to me. I am led toconclude that you desire to make use of me for some purpose which I have aright to suppose honest and blameless, because all you know of me is, thatI rendered to your relation services which can not lower my character inyour eyes. If your object be, as you have intimated, to aid you inexposing and disabling man whose antecedents have been those of guilt, andwho threatens with danger the society which receives him, you must give meproofs that are not reducible to magic; and you must prepossess me againstthe person you accuse, not by powders and fumes that disorder the brain, but by substantial statements, such as justify one man in condemninganother. And, since you have thought fit to convince me that there arechemical means at your disposal, by which the imagination can be soaffected as to accept, temporarily, illusions for realities, so I againdemand, and now still more decidedly than before, that while you addressyourself to my reason, whether to explain your object or to vindicate yourcharges against a man whom I have admitted to my acquaintance, you willdivest yourself of all means and agencies to warp my judgment so illicitand fraudulent as those which you own yourself to possess. Let thecasket, with all its contents, be transferred to my hands, and pledge meyour word that, in giving that casket, you reserve to yourself no othermeans by which chemistry can be abused to those influences over physicalorganization, which ignorance or imposture may ascribe to--magic. "

"I accept no conditions for my confidence, though I think the better ofyoufor attempting to make them. If I live, you will seek me yourself, andimplore my aid. Meanwhile, listen to me, and--"

"No; I prefer the rain and the thunder to the whispers that steal to myear in the dark from one of whom I have reason to beware. "

So saying, I stepped forth, and at that moment the lightning flashedthrough the arch, and brought into full view the face of the man besideme. Seen by that glare, it was pale as the face of a corpse, but itsexpression was compassionate and serene. 

I hesitated, for the expression of that hueless countenance touched me; itwas not the face which inspires distrust or fear. 

"Come, " said I, gently; "grant my demand. The casket--"

"It is no scruple of distrust that now makes that demand; it is acuriosity which in itself is a fearful tempter. Did you now possess whatat this moment you desire, how bitterly you would repent!"

"Do you still refuse my demand?"

"I refuse. "

"If then you really need me, it is you who will repent. "

I passed from the arch into the open space. The rain had passed, thethunder was more distant. I looked back when I had gained the oppositeside of the way, at the angle of a street which led to my own house. As Idid so, again the skies lightened, but the flash was comparatively slightand evanescent; it did not penetrate the gloom of the arch; it did notbring the form of Sir Philip into view; but, just under the base of theouter buttress to the gateway, I descried the outline of a dark figure, cowering down, huddled up for shelter, the outline so indistinct, and sosoon lost to sight as the flash faded, that I could not distinguish if itwere man or brute. If it were some chance passer-by, who had soughtrefuge from the rain, and overheard any part of our strange talk, "thelistener, " thought I with a half-smile, "must have been mightilyperplexed. "