CHAPTER LIII. 

There is an instance of the absorbing tyranny of every-day life which musthave struck all such of my readers as have ever experienced one of thoseportents which are so at variance with every-day life, that the ordinaryepithet bestowed on them is "supernatural. "

And be my readers few or many, there will be no small proportion of themto whom once, at least, in the course of their existence, a somethingstrange and eerie has occurred, --a something which perplexed and baffledrational conjecture, and struck on those chords which vibrate tosuperstition. It may have been only a dream unaccountably verified, --anundefinable presentiment or forewarning; but up from such slighter andvaguer tokens of the realm of marvel, up to the portents of ghostlyapparitions or haunted chambers, I believe that the greater number ofpersons arrived at middle age, however instructed the class, howevercivilized the land, however sceptical the period, to which they belong, have either in themselves experienced, or heard recorded by intimateassociates whose veracity they accept as indisputable in all ordinarytransactions of life, phenomena which are not to be solved by the wit thatmocks them, nor, perhaps, always and entirely, to the contentment of thereason or the philosophy that explains them away. Such phenomena, I say, are infinitely more numerous than would appear from the instancescurrently quoted and dismissed with a jest; for few of those who havewitnessed them are disposed to own it, and they who only hear of themthrough others, however trustworthy, would not impugn their character forcommon-sense by professing a belief to which common-sense is a mercilesspersecutor. But he who reads my assertion in the quiet of his own room, will perhaps pause, ransack his memory, and find there, in some darkcorner which he excludes from "the babbling and remorseless day, " a palerecollection that proves the assertion not untrue. 

And it is, I say, an instance of the absorbing tyranny of everyday life, that whenever some such startling incident disturbs its regular tenor ofthought and occupation, that same every-day life hastens to bury in itssands the object which has troubled its surface; the more unaccountable, the more prodigious, has been the phenomenon which has scared andastounded us, the more, with involuntary effort, the mind seeks to riditself of an enigma which might disease the reason that tries to solve it. We go about our mundane business with renewed avidity; we feel thenecessity of proving to ourselves that we are still sober, practical men, and refuse to be unfitted for the world which we know, by unsolicitedvisitations from worlds into which every glimpse is soon lost amidshadows. And it amazes us to think how soon such incidents, though notactually forgotten, though they can be recalled--and recalled too vividlyfor health--at our will, are nevertheless thrust, as it were, out of themind's sight as we cast into lumber-rooms the crutches and splints thatremind us of a broken limb which has recovered its strength and tone. Itis a felicitous peculiarity in our organization, which all members of myprofession will have noticed, how soon, when a bodily pain is once passed, it becomes erased from the recollection, --how soon and how invariably themind refuses to linger over and recall it. No man freed an hour beforefrom a raging toothache, the rack of a neuralgia, seats himself in hisarmchair to recollect and ponder upon the anguish he has undergone. It isthe same with certain afflictions of the mind, --not with those that strikeon our affections, or blast our fortunes, overshadowing our whole futurewith a sense of loss; but where a trouble or calamity has been anaccident, an episode in our wonted life, where it affects ourselves alone, where it is attended with a sense of shame and humiliation, where the painof recalling it seems idle, and if indulged would almost maddenus, --agonies of that kind we do not brood over as we do over the death orfalsehood of beloved friends, or the train of events by which we arereduced from wealth to penury. No one, for instance, who has escaped froma shipwreck, from the brink of a precipice, from the jaws of a tiger, spends his days and nights in reviving his terrors past, re-imaginingdangers not to occur again, or, if they do occur, from which theexperience undergone can suggest no additional safeguards. The current ofour life, indeed, like that of the rivers, is most rapid in the midmostchannel, where all streams are alike comparatively slow in the depth andalong the shores in which each life, as each river, has a characterpeculiar to itself. And hence, those who would sail with the tide of theworld, as those who sail with the tide of a river, hasten to take themiddle of the stream, as those who sail against the tide are foundclinging to the shore. I returned to my habitual duties and avocationswith renewed energy; I did not suffer my thoughts to dwell on the drearywonders that had haunted me, from the evening I first met Sir PhilipDerval to the morning on which I had quitted the house of his heir;whether realities or hallucinations, no guess of mine could unravel suchmarvels, and no prudence of mine guard me against their repetition. But Ihad no fear that they would be repeated, any more than the man who hadgone through shipwreck, or the hairbreadth escape from a fall down aglacier, fears again to be found in a similar peril. Margrave haddeparted, whither I knew not, and, with his departure, ceased all sense ofhis influence. A certain calm within me, a tranquillizing feeling ofrelief, seemed to me like a pledge of permanent delivery. 

But that which did accompany and haunt me, through all my occupations andpursuits, was the melancholy remembrance of the love I had lost in Lilian. I heard from Mrs. Ashleigh, who still frequently visited me, that herdaughter seemed much in the same quiet state of mind, --perfectlyreconciled to our separation, seldom mentioning my name, if mentioningit, with indifference; the only thing remarkable in her state was heraversion to all society, and a kind of lethargy that would come over her, often in the daytime. She would suddenly fall into sleep and so remainfor hours, but a sleep that seemed very serene and tranquil, and fromwhich she woke of herself. She kept much within her own room, and alwaysretired to it when visitors were announced. 

Mrs. Ashleigh began reluctantly to relinquish the persuasion she had solong and so obstinately maintained, that this state of feeling towardsmyself--and, indeed, this general change in Lilian--was but temporary andabnormal; she began to allow that it was best to drop all thoughts ofarenewed engagement, --a future union. I proposed to see Lilian in herpresence and in my professional capacity; perhaps some physical cause, especially for this lethargy, might be detected and removed. Mrs. Ashleigh owned to me that the idea had occurred to herself: she hadsounded Lilian upon it: but her daughter had so resolutely opposedit, --had said with so quiet a firmness "that all being over between us, avisit from me would be unwelcome and painful, "--that Mrs. Ashleigh feltthat an interview thus deprecated would only confirm estrangement. Oneday, in calling, she asked my advice whether it would not be better to trythe effect of change of air and scene, and, in some other place, someother medical opinion might be taken? I approved of this suggestion withunspeakable sadness. 

"And, " said Mrs. Ashleigh, shedding tears, "if that experiment proveunsuccessful, I will write and let you know; and we must then considerwhat to say to the world as a reason why the marriage is broken off. Ican render this more easy by staying away. I will not return to L----till the matter has ceased to be the topic of talk, and at a distance anyexcuse will be less questioned and seem more natural. Butstill--still--let us hope still. "

"Have you one ground for hope?"

"Perhaps so; but you will think it very frail and fallacious. "

"Name it, and let me judge. "

"One night--in which you were on a visit to Derval Court--"

"Ay, that night. "

"Lilian woke me by a loud cry (she sleeps in the next room to me, and thedoor was left open); I hastened to her bedside in alarm; she was asleep, but appeared extremely agitated and convulsed. She kept calling on yourname in a tone of passionate fondness, but as if in great terror. Shecried, 'Do not go, Allen--do not go--you know not what you brave!--whatyou do!' Then she rose in her bed, clasping her hands. Her face was setand rigid; I tried to awake her, but could not. After a little time, shebreathed a deep sigh, and murmured, 'Allen, Allen! dear love! did you nothear, did you not see me? What could thus baffle matter and traversespace but love and soul? Can you still doubt me, Allen?--doubt that Ilove you now, shall love you evermore?--yonder, yonder, as here below?'She then sank back on her pillow, weeping, and then I woke her. "

"And what did she say on waking?"

"She did not remember what she had dreamed, except that she had passedthrough some great terror; but added, with a vague smile, 'It is over, andI feel happy now. ' Then she turned round and fell asleep again, butquietly as a child, the tears dried, the smile resting. "

"Go, my dear friend, go; take Lilian away from this place as soon as youcan; divert her mind with fresh scenes. I hope!--I do hope! Let me knowwhere you fix yourself. I will seize a holiday, --I need one; I willarrange as to my patients; I will come to the same place; she need notknow of it, but I must be by to watch, to hear your news of her. Heavenbless you for what you have said! I hope!--I do hope!"

CHAPTER LIV. 

Some days after, I received a few lines from Mrs. Ashleigh. Herarrangements for departure were made. They were to start the nextmorning. She had fixed on going into the north of Devonshire, and stayingsome weeks either at Ilfracombe or Lynton, whichever place Lilianpreferred. She would write as soon as they were settled. 

I was up at my usual early hour the next morning. I resolved to go outtowards Mrs. Ashleigh's house, and watch, unnoticed, where I might, perhaps, catch a glimpse of Lilian as the carriage that would convey herto the railway passed my hiding-place. 

I was looking impatiently at the clock; it was yet two hours before thetrain by which Mrs. Ashleigh proposed to leave. A loud ring at my bell!I opened the door. Mrs. Ashleigh rushed in, falling on my breast. 

"Lilian! Lilian!"

"Heavens! What has happened?"

"She has left! she is gone, --gone away! Oh, Allen, how?--whither?Advise me. What is to be done?"

"Come in--compose yourself--tell me all, --clearly, quickly. Liliangone, --gone away? Impossible! She must be hid somewhere in thehouse, --the garden; she, perhaps, did not like the journey. She may havecrept away to some young friend's house. But I talk when you should talk:tell me all. "

Little enough to tell! Lilian had seemed unusually cheerful the nightbefore, and pleased at the thought of the excursion. Mother and daughterretired to rest early: Mrs. Ashleigh saw Lilian sleeping quietly beforeshe herself went to bed. She woke betimes in the morning, dressedherself, went into the next room to call Lilian--Lilian was not there. Nosuspicion of flight occurred to her. Perhaps her daughter might be upalready, and gone downstairs, remembering something she might wish to packand take with her on the journey. Mrs. Ashleigh was confirmed in thisidea when she noticed that her own room door was left open. She wentdownstairs, met a maidservant in the hall, who told her, with alarm andsurprise, that both the street and garden doors were found unclosed. Noone had seen Lilian. Mrs. Ashleigh now became seriously uneasy. Onremounting to her daughter's room, she missed Lilian's bonnet and mantle. The house and garden were both searched in vain. There could be no doubtthat Lilian had gone, --must have stolen noiselessly at night through hermother's room, and let herself out of the house and through the garden. 

"Do you think she could have received any letter, any message, any visitorunknown to you?"

"I cannot think it. Why do you ask? Oh, Allen, you do not believe thereis any accomplice in this disappearance! No, you do not believe it. Butmy child's honour! What will the world think?"

Not for the world cared I at that moment. I could think only of Lilian, and without one suspicion that imputed blame to her. 

"Be quiet, be silent; perhaps she has gone on some visit and will return. Meanwhile, leave inquiry to me. "

CHAPTER LV. 

It seemed incredible that Lilian could wander far without being observed. I soon ascertained that she had not gone away by the railway--by anypublic conveyance--had hired no carriage; she must therefore be still inthe town, or have left it on foot. The greater part of the day wasconsumed in unsuccessful inquiries, and faint hopes that she would return;meanwhile the news of her disappearance had spread: how could such newsfail to do so?

An acquaintance of mine met me under the archway of Monks' Gate. He wrungmy hand and looked at me with great compassion. 

"I fear, " said he, "that we were all deceived in that young Margrave. Heseemed so well conducted, in spite of his lively manners. But--"

"But what?"

"Mrs. Ashleigh was, perhaps, imprudent to admit him into her house sofamiliarly. He was certainly very handsome. Young ladies will beromantic. "

"How dare you, sir!" I cried, choked with rage. "And without anycolouring to so calumnious a suggestion! Margrave has not been in thetown for many days. No one knows even where he is. "

"Oh, yes, it is known where he is. He wrote to order the effects which hehad left here to be sent to Penrith. "

"When?"

"The letter arrived the day before yesterday. I happened to be calling atthe house where he last lodged, when at L----, the house opposite Mrs. Ashleigh's garden. No doubt the servants in both houses gossip with eachother. Miss Ashleigh could scarcely fail to hear of Mr. Margrave'saddress from her maid; and since servants will exchange gossip, they mayalso convey letters. Pardon me, you know I am your friend. "

"Not from the moment you breathe a word against my betrothed wife, " saidI, fiercely. 

I wrenched myself from the clasp of the man's hand, but his words stillrang in my ears. I mounted my horse; I rode into the adjoining suburbs, the neighbouring villages; there, however, I learned nothing, till, justat nightfall, in a hamlet about ten miles from L----, a labourer declaredhe had seen a young lady dressed as I described, who passed by him in apath through the fields a little before noon; that he was surprised to seeone so young, so well dressed, and a stranger to the neighbourhood (for heknew by sight the ladies of the few families scattered around) walkingalone; that as he stepped out of the path to make way for her, he lookedhard fnto her face, and she did not heed him, --seemed to gaze right beforeher, into space. If her expression had been less quiet and gentle, heshould have thought, he could scarcely say why, that she was not quiteright in her mind; there was a strange unconscious stare in her eyes, asif she were walking in her sleep. Her pace was very steady, --neitherquick nor slow. He had watched her till she passed out of sight, amidst awood through which the path wound its way to a village at some distance. 

I followed up this clew. I arrived at the village to which my informantdirected me, but night had set in. Most of the houses were closed, so Icould glean no further information from the cottages or at the inn. Butthe police superintendent of the district lived in the village, and to himI gave instructions which I had not given, and, indeed, would have beendisinclined to give, to the police at L----. He was intelligent andkindly; he promised to communicate at once with the differentpolice-stations for miles round, and with all delicacy and privacy. Itwas not probable that Lilian could have wandered in one day much fartherthan the place at which I then was; it was scarcely to be conceived thatshe could baffle my pursuit and the practised skill of the police. Irested but a few hours, at a small public-house, and was on horsebackagain at dawn. A little after sunrise I again heard of the wanderer. Ata lonely cottage, by a brick-kiln, in the midst of a wide common, she hadstopped the previous evening, and asked for a draught of milk. The womanwho gave it to her inquired if she had lost her way. She said "No;" and, only tarrying a few minutes, had gone across the common; and the womansupposed she was a visitor at a gentleman's house which was at the fartherend of the waste, for the path she took led to no town, no village. Itoccurred to me then that Lilian avoided all high-roads, all places, eventhe humblest, where men congregated together. But where could she havepassed the night? Not to fatigue the reader with the fruitless result offrequent inquiries, I will but say that at the end of the second day I hadsucceeded in ascertaining that I was still on her track; and though I hadridden to and fro nearly double the distance--coming back again to placesI had left behind--it was at the distance of forty miles from L---- that Ilast heard of her that second day. She had been sitting alone by a littlebrook only an hour before. I was led to the very spot by a woodman--itwas at the hour of twilight when he beheld her; she was leaning her faceon her hand, and seemed weary. He spoke to her; she did not answer, butrose and resumed her way along the banks of the streamlet. That night Iput up at no inn; I followed the course of the brook for miles, thenstruck into every path that I could conceive her to have taken, --in vain. Thus I consumed the night on foot, tying my horse to a tree, for he wastired out, and returning to him at sunrise. At noon, the third day, Iagain heard of her, and in a remote, savage part of the country. Thefeatures of the landscape were changed; there was little foliage andlittle culture, but the ground was broken into moulds and hollows, andcovered with patches of heath and stunted brushwood. She had been seen bya shepherd, and he made the same observation as the first who had guidedme on her track, --she looked to him "like some one walking in her sleep. "An hour or two later, in a dell, amongst the furze-bushes, I chanced on aknot of ribbon. I recognized the colour Lilian habitually wore; I feltcertain that the ribbon was hers. Calculating the utmost speed I couldascribe to her, she could not be far off, yet still I failed to discoverher. The scene now was as solitary as a desert. I met no one on my way. At length, a little after sunset, I found myself in view of the sea. Asmall town nestled below the cliffs, on which I was guiding my wearyhorse. I entered the town, and while my horse was baiting went in searchof the resident policeman. The information I had directed to be sentround the country had reached him; he had acted on it, but without result. I was surprised to hear him address me by name, and looking at him morenarrowly, I recognized him for the policeman Waby. This young man hadalways expressed so grateful a sense of my attendance on his sister, andhad, indeed, so notably evinced his gratitude in prosecuting with Margravethe inquiries which terminated in the discovery of Sir Philip Derval'smurderer, that I confided to him the name of the wanderer, of which he hadnot been previously informed; but which it would be, indeed, impossible toconceal from him should the search in which his aid was asked provesuccessful, --as he knew Miss Ashleigh by sight. His face immediatelybecame thoughtful. He paused a minute or two, and then said, --

"I think I have it, but I do not like to say; I may pain you, sir. "

"Not by confidence; you pain me by concealment. "

The man hesitated still: I encouraged him, and then he spoke out frankly. 

"Sir, did you never think it strange that Mr. Margrave should move fromhis handsome rooms in the hotel to a somewhat uncomfortable lodging, fromthe window of which he could look down on Mrs. Ashleigh's garden? I haveseen him at night in the balcony of that window, and when I noticed himgoing so frequently into Mrs. Ashleigh's house during your unjustdetention, I own, sir, I felt for you--"

"Nonsense! Mr. Margrave went to Mrs. Ashleigh's house as my friend. Hehas left L---- weeks ago. What has all this to do with--"

"Patience, sir; hear me out. I was sent from L---- to this station (onpromotion, sir) a fortnight since last Friday, for there has been a gooddeal of crime hereabouts; it is a bad neighbourhood, and full ofsmugglers. Some days ago, in watching quietly near a lonely house, ofwhich the owner is a suspicious character down in my books, I saw, to myamazement, Mr. Margrave come out of that house, --come out of a privatedoor in it, which belongs to a part of the building not inhabited by theowner, but which used formerly, when the house was a sort of inn, to belet to night lodgers of the humblest description. I followed him; he wentdown to the seashore, walked about, singing to himself; then returned tothe house, and re-entered by the same door. I soon learned that he lodgedin the house, --had lodged there for several days. The next morning, afine yacht arrived at a tolerably convenient creek about a mile from thehouse, and there anchored. Sailors came ashore, rambling down to thistown. The yacht belonged to Mr. Margrave; he had purchased it bycommission in London. It is stored for a long voyage. He had directed itto come to him in this out-of-the-way place, where no gentleman's yachtever put in before, though the creek or bay is handy enough for suchcraft. Well, sir, is it not strange that a rich young gentleman shouldcome to this unfrequented seashore, put up with accommodation that must beof the rudest kind, in the house of a man known as a desperate smuggler, suspected to be worse; order a yacht to meet him here; is not all thisstrange? But would it be strange if he were waiting for a young lady?And if a young lady has fled at night from her home, and has come secretlyalong bypaths, which must have been very fully explained to herbeforehand, and is now near that young gentleman's lodging, if notactually in it--if this be so, why, the affair is not so very strangeafter all. And now do you forgive me, sir?"

"Where is this house? Lead me to it. "

"You can hardly get to it except on foot; rough walking, sir, and aboutseven miles off by the shortest cut. "

"Come, and at once; come quickly. We must be there before--before--"

"Before the young lady can get to the place. Well, from what you say ofthe spot in which she was last seen, I think, on reflection, we may easilydo that. I am at your service, sir. But I should warn you that theowners of the house, man and wife, are both of villanous character, --woulddo anything for money. Mr. Margrave, no doubt, has money enough; and ifthe young lady chooses to go away with Mr. Margrave, you know I have nopower to help it. "

"Leave all that to me; all I ask of you is to show me the house. "

We were soon out of the town; the night had closed in; it was very dark, in spite of a few stars; the path was rugged and precipitous, sometimesskirting the very brink of perilous cliffs, sometimes delving down to theseashore--there stopped by rock or wave--and painfully rewinding up theascent. 

"It is an ugly path, sir, but it saves four miles; and anyhow the road isa bad one. "

We came, at last, to a few wretched fishermen's huts. The moon had nowrisen, and revealed the squalor of poverty-stricken ruinous hovels; acouple of boats moored to the shore, a moaning, fretful sea; and at adistance a vessel, with lights on board, lying perfectly still at anchorin a sheltered curve of the bold rude shore. The policeman pointed to thevessel. 

"The yacht, sir; the wind will be in her favour if she sails tonight. "

We quickened our pace as well as the nature of the path would permit, leftthe huts behind us, and about a mile farther on came to a solitary house, larger than, from the policeman's description of Margrave's lodgement, Ishould have presupposed: a house that in the wilder parts of Scotlandmight be almost a laird's; but even in the moonlight it looked verydilapidated and desolate. Most of the windows were closed, some withpanes broken, stuffed with wisps of straw; there were the remains of awall round the house; it was broken in some parts (only its foundationleft). On approaching the house I observed two doors, --one on the sidefronting the sea, one on the other side, facing a patch of broken groundthat might once have been a garden, and lay waste within the enclosure ofthe ruined wall, encumbered with various litter; heaps of rubbish, aruined shed, the carcass of a worn-out boat. This latter door stood wideopen, --the other was closed. The house was still and dark, as if eitherdeserted, or all within it retired to rest. 

"I think that open door leads at once to the rooms Mr. Margrave hires; hecan go in and out without disturbing the other inmates. They used tokeep, on the side which they inhabit, a beer-house, but the magistratesshut it up; still, it is a resort for bad characters. Now, sir, whatshall we do?

"Watch separately. You wait within the enclosure of the wall, hid bythose heaps of rubbish, near the door; none can enter but what you willobserve them. If you see her, you will accost and stop her, and callaloud for me; I shall be in hearing. I will go back to the high part ofthe ground yonder--it seems to me that she must pass that way; and I woulddesire, if possible, to save her from the humiliation, the--the shame ofcoming within the precincts of that man's abode. I feel I may trust younow and hereafter. It is a great thing for the happiness and honour ofthis poor young lady and her mother, that I may be able to declare that Idid not take her from that man, from any man--from that house, from anyhouse. You comprehend me, and will obey? I speak to you as aconfidant, --a friend. "

"I thank you with my whole heart, sir, for so doing. You saved mysister's life, and the least I can do is to keep secret all that wouldpain your life if blabbed abroad. I know what mischief folks' tongues canmake. I will wait by the door, never fear, and will rather lose my placethan not strain all the legal power I possess to keep the young lady backfrom sorrow. "

This dialogue was interchanged in close hurried whisper behind the brokenwall, and out of all hearing. Waby now crept through a wide gap into theinclosure, and nestled himself silently amidst the wrecks of the brokenboat, not six feet from the open door, and close to the wall of the houseitself. I went back some thirty yards up the road, to the rising groundwhich I had pointed out to him. According to the best calculation I couldmake--considering the pace at which I had cleared the precipitous pathway, and reckoning from the place and time at which Lilian had been lastseen-she could not possibly have yet entered that house. I might presumeit would be more than half an hour before she could arrive; I was in hopesthat, during the interval, Margrave might show himself, perhaps at thedoor, or from the windows, or I might even by some light from the latterbe guided to the room in which to find him. If, after waiting areasonable time, Lilian should fail to appear, I had formed my plan ofaction; but it was important for the success of that plan that I shouldnot lose myself in the strange house, nor bring its owners to Margrave'said, --that I should surprise him alone and unawares. Half an hour, threequarters, a whole hour thus passed. No sign of my poor wanderer; butsigns there were of the enemy from whom I resolved, at whatever risk, tofree and to save her. A window on the ground-floor, to the left of thedoor, which had long fixed my attention because I had seen light throughthe chinks of the shutters, slowly unclosed, the shutters fell back, thecasement opened, and I beheld Margrave distinctly; he held something inhis hand that gleamed in the moonlight, directed not towards the mound onwhich I stood, nor towards the path I had taken, but towards an open spacebeyond the ruined wall to the right. Hid by a cluster of stunted shrubs Iwatched him with a heart that beat with rage, not with terror. He seemedso intent in his own gaze as to be unheeding or unconscious of all else. I stole from my post, and, still under cover, sometimes of the brokenwall, sometimes of the shaggy ridges that skirted the path, crept on, ontill I reached the side of the house itself; then, there secure from hiseyes, should he turn them, I stepped over the ruined wall, scarcely twofeet high in that place, on--on towards the door. I passed the spot onwhich the policeman had shrouded himself; he was seated, his back againstthe ribs of the broken boat. I put my hand to his mouth that he might notcry out in surprise, and whispered in his ear; he stirred not. I shookhim by the arm: still he stirred not. A ray of the moon fell on his face. I saw that he was in a profound slumber. Persuaded that it was no naturalsleep, and that he had become useless to me, I passed him by. I was atthe threshold of the open door, the light from the window close by fallingon the ground; I was in the passage; a glimmer came through the chinks ofa door to the left; I turned the handle noiselessly, and, the next moment, Margrave was locked in my grasp. 

"Call out, " I hissed in his ear, "and I strangle you before any one cancome to your help. "

He did not call out; his eye, fixed on mine as he writhed round, saw, perhaps, his peril if he did. His countenance betrayed fear, but as Itightened my grasp that expression gave way to one of wrath andfierceness; and as, in turn, I felt the grip of his hand, I knew thatthe struggle between us would be that of two strong men, each equallybent on the mastery of the other. 

I was, as I have said before, endowed with an unusual degree of physicalpower, disciplined in early youth by athletic exercise and contest. Inheight and in muscle I had greatly the advantage over my antagonist; butsuch was the nervous vigour, the elastic energy of his incomparable frame, in which sinews seemed springs of steel, that had our encounter been onein which my strength was less heightened by rage, I believe that I couldno more have coped with him than the bison can cope with the boa; but Iwas animated by that passion which trebles for a time all ourforces, --which makes even the weak man a match for the strong. I feltthat if I were worsted, disabled, stricken down, Lilian might be lost inlosing her sole protector; and on the other hand, Margrave had been takenat the disadvantage of that surprise which will half unnerve the fiercestof the wild beasts; while as we grappled, reeling and rocking to and froin our struggle, I soon observed that his attention was distracted, --thathis eye was turned towards an object which he had dropped involuntarilywhen I first seized him. He sought to drag me towards that object, andwhen near it stooped to seize. It was a bright, slender, short wand ofsteel. I remembered when and where I had seen it, whether in my wakingstate or in vision; and as his hand stole down to take it from the floor, I set on the wand my strong foot. I cannot tell by what rapid process ofthought and association I came to the belief that the possession of alittle piece of blunted steel would decide the conflict in favor of thepossessor; but the struggle now was concentred on the attainment of thatseemingly idle weapon. I was becoming breathless and exhausted, whileMargrave seemed every moment to gather up new force, when collecting allmy strength for one final effort, I lifted him suddenly high in the air, and hurled him to the farthest end of the cramped arena to which ourcontest was confined. He fell, and with a force by which most men wouldhave been stunned; but he recovered himself with a quick rebound, and, ashe stood facing me, there was something grand as well as terrible in hisaspect. His eyes literally flamed, as those of a tiger; his rich hair, flung back from his knitted forehead, seemed to erect itself as an angrymane; his lips, slightly parted, showed the glitter of his set teeth; hiswhole frame seemed larger in the tension of the muscles, and as, graduallyrelaxing his first defying and haughty attitude, he crouched as thepanther crouches for its deadly spring, I felt as if it were a wild beast, whose rush was coming upon me, --wild beast, but still Man, the king ofthe animals, fashioned forth from no mixture of humbler races by the slowrevolutions of time, but his royalty stamped on his form when the earthbecame fit for his coming. [1]

At that moment I snatched up the wand, directed it towards him, andadvancing with a fearless stride, cried, --

"Down to my feet, miserable sorcerer!"

To my own amaze, the effect was instantaneous. My terrible antagonistdropped to the floor as a dog drops at the word of his master. Themuscles of his frowning countenance relaxed, the glare of his wrathfuleyes grew dull and rayless; his limbs lay prostrate and unnerved, his headrested against the wall, his arms limp and drooping by his side. Iapproached him slowly and cautiously; he seemed cast into a profoundslumber. 

"You are at my mercy now!" said I. 

He moved his head as in sign of deprecating submission. 

"You hear and understand me? Speak!"

His lips faintly muttered, "Yes. "

"I command you to answer truly the questions I shall address to you. "

"I must, while yet sensible of the power that has passed to your hand. "

"Is it by some occult magnetic property in this wand that you haveexercised so demoniac an influence over a creature so pure as LilianAshleigh?"

"By that wand and by other arts which you could not comprehend. "

"And for what infamous object, --her seduction, her dishonour?"

"No! I sought in her the aid of a gift which would cease did she ceaseto be pure. At first I but cast my influence upon her that through her Imight influence yourself. I needed your help to discover a secret. Circumstances steeled your mind against me. I could no longer hope thatyou would voluntarily lend yourself to my will. Meanwhile, I had found inher the light of a loftier knowledge than that of your science; throughthat knowledge, duly heeded and cultivated, I hoped to divine what Icannot of myself discover. Therefore I deepened over her mind the spellsI command; therefore I have drawn her hither as the loadstone draws thesteel, and therefore I would have borne her with me to the shores to whichI was about this night to sail. I had cast the inmates of the house andall around it into slumber, in order that none might witness herdeparture; had I not done so, I should have summoned others to my aid, inspite of your threat. "

"And would Lilian Ashleigh have passively accompanied you, to her ownirretrievable disgrace?"

"She could not have helped it; she would have been unconscious of heracts; she was, and is, in a trance; nor, had she gone with me, would shehave waked from that state while she lived; that would not have beenlong. "

"Wretch! and for what object of unhallowed curiosity do you exert aninfluence which withers away the life of its victim?"

"Not curiosity, but the instinct of self-preservation. I count on no lifebeyond the grave. I would defy the grave, and live on. "

"And was it to learn, through some ghastly agencies, the secret ofrenewing existence, that you lured me by the shadow of your own image onthe night when we met last?"

The voice of Margrave here became very faint as he answered me, and hiscountenance began to exhibit the signs of an exhaustion almost mortal. 

"Be quick, " he murmured, "or I die. The fluid which emanates from thatwand, in the hand of one who envenoms that fluid with his own hatred andrage, will prove fatal to my life. Lower the wand from my forehead!low--low, --lower still!"

"What was the nature of that rite in which you constrained me to share?"

"I cannot say. You are killing me. Enough that you were saved from agreat danger by the apparition of the protecting image vouchsafed to youreye; otherwise you would--you would--Oh, release me! Away! away!"

The foam gathered to his lips; his limbs became fearfully convulsed. 

"One question more: where is Lilian at this moment? Answer that question, and I depart. "

He raised his head, made a visible effort to rally his strength, andgasped out, --

"Yonder. Pass through the open space up the cliff, beside a thorn-tree;you will find her there, where she halted when the wand dropped from myhand. But--but--beware! Ha! you will serve me yet, and through her!They said so that night, though you heard them not. They said it!" Herehis face became death-like; he pressed his hand on his heart, and shriekedout, "Away! away! or you are my murderer!"

I retreated to the other end of the room, turning the wand from him, andwhen I gained the door, looked back; his convulsions had ceased, but heseemed locked in a profound swoon. 

I left the room, --the house, --paused by Waby; he was still sleeping. "Awake!" I said, and touched him with the wand. He started up at once, rubbed his eyes, began stammering out excuses. I checked them, and badehim follow me. I took the way up the open ground towards which Margravehad pointed the wand, and there, motionless, beside a gnarled fantasticthorn-tree, stood Lilian. Her arms were folded across her breast; herface, seen by the moonlight, looked so innocent and so infantine, that Ineeded no other evidence to tell me how unconscious she was of the perilto which her steps had been drawn. I took her gently by the hand. "Comewith me, " I said in a whisper, and she obeyed me silently, and with aplacid smile. 

Rough though the way, she seemed unconscious of fatigue. I placed herarm in mine, but she did not lean on it. We got back to the town. Iobtained there an old chaise and a pair of horses. At morning Lilianwas under her mother's roof. About the noon of that day fever seizedher; she became rapidly worse, and, to all appearance, in imminentdanger. Delirium set in; I watched beside her night and day, supported by an inward conviction of her recovery, but tortured bythe sight of her sufferings. On the third day a change for the betterbecame visible; her sleep was calm, her breathing regular. 

Shortly afterwards she woke out of danger. Her eyes fell at once on me, with all their old ineffable tender sweetness. 

"Oh, Allen, beloved, have I not been very ill? But I am almost well now. Do not weep; I shall live for you, --for your sake. " And she bent forward, drawing my hand from my streaming eyes, and kissed me with a child'sguileless kiss on my burning forehead. 

[1] And yet, even if we entirely omit the consideration of the soul, thatimmaterial and immortal principle which is for a time united to his body, and view him only in his merely animal character, man is still the mostexcellent of animals. --Dr. Kidd, On the Adaptation of External Nature tothe Physical Condition of Man (Sect. Iii. P. 18). 

CHAPTER LVI. 

Lilian recovered, but the strange thing was this: all memory of the weeksthat had elapsed since her return from visiting her aunt was completelyobliterated; she seemed in profound ignorance of the charge on which Ihad been confined, --perfectly ignorant even of the existence of Margrave. She had, indeed, a very vague reminiscence of her conversation with me inthe garden, --the first conversation which had ever been embittered by adisagreement, --but that disagreement itself she did not recollect. Herbelief was that she had been ill and light-headed since that evening. From that evening to the hour of her waking, conscious and revived, allwas a blank. Her love for me was restored, as if its thread had neverbeen broken. Some such instances of oblivion after bodily illness ormental shock are familiar enough to the practice of all medical men;[1]and I was therefore enabled to appease the anxiety and wonder of Mrs. Ashleigh, by quoting various examples of loss, or suspension, of memory. We agreed that it would be necessary to break to Lilian, though verycautiously, the story of Sir Philip Derval's murder, and the charge towhich I had been subjected. She could not fail to hear of those eventsfrom others. How shall I express her womanly terror, her loving, sympathizing pity, on hearing the tale, which I softened as well as Icould?

"And to think that I knew nothing of this!" she cried, clasping my hand;"to think that you were in peril, and that I was not by your side!"

Her mother spoke of Margrave, as a visitor, --an agreeable, livelystranger; Lilian could not even recollect his name, but she seemed shockedto think that any visitor had been admitted while I was in circumstancesso awful! Need I say that our engagement was renewed? Renewed! To herknowledge and to her heart it had never been interrupted for a moment. But oh! the malignity of the wrong world! Oh, that strange lust ofmangling reputations, which seizes on hearts the least wantonly cruel!Let two idle tongues utter a tale against some third person, who neveroffended the babblers, and how the tale spreads, like fire, lighted noneknow how, in the herbage of an American prairie! Who shall put it out?

What right have we to pry into the secrets of other men's hearths? Trueor false, the tale that is gabbled to us, what concern of ours can it be?I speak not of cases to which the law has been summoned, which law hassifted, on which law has pronounced. But how, when the law is silent, canwe assume its verdicts? How be all judges where there has been nowitness-box, no cross-examination, no jury? Yet, every day we put on ourermine, and make ourselves judges, --judges sure to condemn, and on whatevidence? That which no court of law will receive. Somebody has saidsomething to somebody, which somebody repeats to everybody!

The gossip of L---- had set in full current against Lilian's fair name. No ladies had called or sent to congratulate Mrs. Ashleigh on her return, or to inquire after Lilian herself during her struggle between life anddeath. 

How I missed the Queen of the Hill at this critical moment! How I longedfor aid to crush the slander, with which I knew not how to grapple, --aidin her knowledge of the world and her ascendancy over its judgments! Ihad heard from her once since her absence, briefly but kindly expressingher amazement at the ineffable stupidity which could for a moment havesubjected me to a suspicion of Sir Philip Derval's strange murder, andcongratulating me heartily on my complete vindication from so monstrous acharge. To this letter no address was given. I supposed the omission tobe accidental, but on calling at her house to inquire her direction, Ifound that the servants did not know it. 

What, then, was my joy when just at this juncture I received a note fromMrs. Poyntz, stating that she had returned the night before, and would beglad to see me. 

I hastened to her house. "Ah, " thought I, as I sprang lightly up theascent to the Hill, "how the tattlers will be silenced by a word from herimperial lips!" And only just as I approached her door did it strike mehow difficult--nay, how impossible--to explain to her--the hard positivewoman, her who had, less ostensibly but more ruthlessly than myself, destroyed Dr. Lloyd for his belief in the comparatively rationalpretensions of clairvoyance--all the mystical excuses for Lilian's flightfrom her home? How speak to her--or, indeed, to any one--about an occultfascination and a magic wand? No matter: surely it would be enough to saythat at the time Lilian had been light-headed, under the influence of thefever which had afterwards nearly proved fatal, The early friend of AnneAshleigh would not be a severe critic on any tale that might right thegood name of Anne Ashleigh's daughter. So assured, with a light heart anda cheerful face, I followed the servant into the great lady's pleasant butdecorous presence-chamber. 

[1] Such instances of suspense of memory are recorded in mostphysiological and in some metaphysical works. Dr. Abercrombie noticessome, more or less similar to that related in the text: "A young ladywho was present at a catastrophe in Scotland, in which many people losttheir lives by the fall of the gallery of a church, escaped without anyinjury, but with the complete loss of the recollection of any of thecircumstances; and this extended not only to the accident, but toeverything that had occurred to her for a certain time before going tochurch. A lady whom I attended some years ago in a protracted illness, inwhich her memory became much impaired, lost the recollection of a periodof about ten or twelve years, but spoke with perfect consistency of thingsas they stood before that time. " Dr. Aberercmbie adds: "As far as I havebeen able to trace it, the principle in such cases seems to be, that whenthe memory is impaired to a certain degree, the loss of it extendsbackward to some event or some period by which a particularly deepimpression had been made upon the mind. "--ABERCROMBIE: On theIntellectual Powers, pp. 118, 119 (15th edition). 

CHAPTER LVII. 

Mrs. Poyntz was on her favourite seat by the window, and for a wonder, notknitting--that classic task seemed done; but she was smoothing and foldingthe completed work with her white comely hand, and smiling over it, as ifin complacent approval, when I entered the room. At the fire-side sat thehe-colonel inspecting a newly-invented barometer; at another window, inthe farthest recess of the room, stood Miss Jane Poyntz, with a younggentleman whom I had never before seen, but who turned his eyes full uponme with a haughty look as the servant announced my name. He was tall, well proportioned, decidedly handsome, but with that expression of coldand concentred self-esteem in his very attitude, as well as hiscountenance, which makes a man of merit unpopular, a man without meritridiculous. 

The he-colonel, always punctiliously civil, rose from his seat, shookhands with me cordially, and said, "Coldish weather to-day; but we shallhave rain to-morrow. Rainy seasons come in cycles. We are about tocommence a cycle of them with heavy showers. " He sighed, and returned tohis barometer. 

Miss Jane bowed to me graciously enough, but was evidently a littleconfused, --a circumstance which might well attract my notice, for I hadnever before seen that high-bred young lady deviate a hairsbreadth fromthe even tenor of a manner admirable for a cheerful and courteous ease, which, one felt convinced, would be unaltered to those around her if anearthquake swallowed one up an inch before her feet. 

The young gentleman continued to eye me loftily, as the heir-apparent tosome celestial planet might eye an inferior creature from a half-formednebula suddenly dropped upon his sublime and perfected, star. 

Mrs. Poyntz extended to me two fingers, and said frigidly, "Delighted tosee you again! How kind to attend so soon to my note!"

Motioning me to a seat beside her, she here turned to her husband, andsaid, "Poyntz, since a cycle of rain begins tomorrow, better secure yourride to-day. Take these young people with you. I want to talk with Dr. Fenwick. "

The colonel carefully put away his barometer, and saying to his daughter, "Come!" went forth. Jane followed her father; the young gentlemanfollowed Jane. 

The reception I had met chilled and disappointed me. I felt that Mrs. Poyntz was changed, and in her change the whole house seemed changed. Thevery chairs looked civilly unfriendly, as if preparing to turn their backson me. However, I was not in the false position of an intruder; I hadbeen summoned; it was for Mrs. Poyntz to speak first, and I waited quietlyfor her to do so. 

She finished the careful folding of her work, and then laid it at rest inthe drawer of the table at which she sat. Having so done, she turned tome, and said, --

"By the way, I ought to have introduced to you my young guest, Mr. Ashleigh Sumner. You would like him. He has talents, --not showy, butsolid. He will succeed in public life. "

"So that young man is Mr. Ashleigh Sumner? I do not wonder that MissAshleigh rejected him. "

I said this, for I was nettled, as well as surprised, at the coolness withwhich a lady who had professed a friendship for me mentioned thatfortunate young gentleman, with so complete an oblivion of all theantecedents that had once made his name painful to my ear. 

In turn, my answer seemed to nettle Mrs. Poyntz. 

"I am not so sure that she did reject; perhaps she rather misunderstoodhim; gallant compliments are not always proposals of marriage. Howeverthat be, his spirits were not much damped by Miss Ashleigh's disdain, norhis heart deeply smitten by her charms; for he is now very happy, verymuch attached to another young lady, to whom he proposed three days ago, at Lady Delafield's, and not to make a mystery of what all our littleworld will know before tomorrow, that young lady is my daughter Jane. "

"Were I acquainted with Mr. Sumner, I should offer to him my sincerecongratulations. "

Mrs. Poyntz resumed, without heeding a reply more complimentary to MissJane than to the object of her choice, --

"I told you that I meant Jane to marry a rich country gentleman, andAshleigh Sumner is the very country gentleman I had then in my thoughts. He is cleverer and more ambitious than I could have hoped; he will be aminister some day, in right of his talents, and a peer, if he wishes it, in right of his lands. So that matter is settled. "

There was a pause, during which my mind passed rapidly through links ofreminiscence and reasoning, which led me to a mingled sentiment ofadmiration for Mrs. Poyntz as a diplomatist and of distrust for Mrs. Poyntz as a friend. It was now clear why Mrs. Poyntz, before so littledisposed to approve my love, had urged me at once to offer my hand toLilian, in order that she might depart affianced and engaged to the housein which she would meet Mr. Ashleigh Sumner. Hence Mrs. Poyntz's anxietyto obtain all the information I could afford her of the sayings anddoings at Lady Haughton's; hence, the publicity she had so suddenly givento my engagement; hence, when Mr. Sumner had gone away a rejected suitor, her own departure from L----; she had seized the very moment when a vainand proud man, piqued by the mortification received from one lady, fallsthe easier prey to the arts which allure his suit to another. All was sofar clear to me. And I--was my self-conceit less egregious and lessreadily duped than that of yon glided popinjay's! How skilfully thiswoman had knitted me into her work with the noiseless turn of her whitehands! and yet, forsooth, I must vaunt the superior scope of my intellect, and plumb all the fountains of Nature, --I, who could not fathom the littlepool of this female schemer's mind!

But that was no time for resentment to her or rebuke to myself. She wasnow the woman who could best protect and save from slander my innocent, beloved Lilian. But how approach that perplexing subject?

Mrs. Poyntz approached it, and with her usual decision of purpose, whichbore so deceitful a likeness to candour of mind. 

"But it was not to talk of my affairs that I asked you to call, AllenFenwick. " As she uttered my name, her voice softened, and her manner tookthat maternal, caressing tenderness which had sometimes amused andsometimes misled me. "No, I do not forget that you asked me to be yourfriend, and I take without scruple the license of friendship. What arethese stories that I have heard already about Lilian Ashleigh, to whom youwere once engaged?"

"To whom I am still engaged. "

"Is it possible? Oh, then, of course the stories I have heard are allfalse. Very likely; no fiction in scandal ever surprises me. Poor dearLilian, then, never ran away from her mother's house?"

I smothered the angry pain which this mode of questioning caused me; Iknew how important it was to Lilian to secure to her the countenance andsupport of this absolute autocrat; I spoke of Lilian's long previousdistemper of mind; I accounted for it as any intelligent physician, unacquainted with all that I could not reveal, would account. Heavenforgive me for the venial falsehood, but I spoke of the terrible chargeagainst myself as enough to unhinge for a time the intellect of a girl soacutely sensitive as Lilian; I sought to create that impression as to theorigin of all that might otherwise seem strange; and in this state ofcerebral excitement she had wandered from home--but alone. I had trackedevery step of her way; I had found and restored her to her home. Acritical delirium had followed, from which she now rose, cured in health, unsuspicious that there could be a whisper against her name. And then, with all the eloquence I could command, and in words as adapted as I couldframe them to soften the heart of a woman, herself a mother, I imploredMrs. Poyntz's aid to silence all the cruelties of calumny, and extend hershield over the child of her own early friend. 

When I came to an end, I had taken, with caressing force, Mrs. Poyntz'sreluctant hands in mine. There were tears in my voice, tears in my eyes. And the sound of her voice in reply gave me hope, for it was unusuallygentle. She was evidently moved. The hope was soon quelled. 

"Allen Fenwick, " she said, "you have a noble heart; I grieve to see how itabuses your reason. I cannot aid Lilian Ashleigh in the way you ask. Donot start back so indignantly. Listen to me as patiently as I havelistened to you. That when you brought back the unfortunate young womanto her poor mother, her mind was disordered, and became yet moredangerously so, I can well believe; that she is now recovered, and thinkswith shame, or refuses to think at all, of her imprudent flight, I canbelieve also; but I do not believe, the World cannot believe, that she didnot, knowingly and purposely, quit her mother's roof, and in quest of thatyoung stranger so incautiously, so unfeelingly admitted to her mother'shouse during the very time you were detained on the most awful of humanaccusations. Every one in the town knows that Mr. Margrave visited dailyat Mrs. Ashleigh's during that painful period; every one in the town knowsin what strange out-of-the-way place this young man had niched himself;and that a yacht was bought, and lying in wait there. What for? It issaid that the chaise in which you brought Miss Ashleigh back to her homewas hired in a village within an easy reach of Mr. Margrave's lodging--ofMr. Margrave's yacht. I rejoice that you saved the poor girl from ruin;but her good name is tarnished; and if Anne Ashleigh, whom I sincerelypity, asks me my advice, I can but give her this: 'Leave L----, take yourdaughter abroad; and if she is not to marry Mr. Margrave, marry her asquietly and as quickly as possible to some foreigner. '"

"Madam! madam! this, then, is your friendship to her--to me! Oh, shameon you to insult thus an affianced husband! Shame on me ever to havethought you had a heart!"

"A heart, man!" she exclaimed, almost fiercely, springing up, andstartling me with the change in her countenance and voice. "And littleyou would have valued, and pitilessly have crushed this heart, if I hadsuffered myself to show it to you! What right have you to reproach me? Ifelt a warm interest in your career, an unusual attraction in yourconversation and society. Do you blame me for that, or should I blamemyself? Condemned to live amongst brainless puppets, my dull occupationto pull the strings that moved them, it was a new charm to my life toestablish friendship and intercourse with intellect and spirit andcourage. Ah! I understand that look, half incredulous, halfinquisitive. "

"Inquisitive, no; incredulous, yes! You desired my friendship, and howdoes your harsh judgment of my betrothed wife prove either to me or to hermother, whom you have known from your girlhood, the first duty of afriend, --which is surely not that of leaving a friend's side the momentthat he needs countenance in calumny, succour in trouble!"

"It is a better duty to prevent the calumny and avert the trouble. Leaveaside Anne Ashleigh, a cipher that I can add or abstract from my sum oflife as I please. What is my duty to yourself? It is plain. It is totell you that your honour commands you to abandon all thoughts of LilianAshleigh as your wife. Ungrateful that you are! Do you suppose it was nomortification to my pride of woman and friend, that you never approachedme in confidence except to ask my good offices in promoting your courtshipto another; no shock to the quiet plans I had formed as to our familiarthough harmless intimacy, to hear that you were bent on a marriage inwhich my friend would be lost to me?"

"Not lost! not lost! On the contrary, the regard I must suppose you hadfor Lilian would have been a new link between our homes. "

"Pooh! Between me and that dreamy girl there could have been no sympathy, there could have grown up no regard. You would have been chained to yourfireside, and--and--but no matter. I stifled my disappointment as soon asI felt it, --stifled it, as all my life I have stifled that which eitherdestiny or duty--duty to myself as to others--forbids me to indulge. Ah, do not fancy me one of the weak criminals who can suffer a worthy likingto grow into a debasing love! I was not in love with you, Allen Fenwick. "

"Do you think I was ever so presumptuous a coxcomb as to fancy it?"

"No, " she said, more softly; "I was not so false to my household ties andto my own nature. But there are some friendships which are as jealous aslove. I could have cheerfully aided you in any choice which my sensecould have approved for you as wise; I should have been pleased to havefound in such a wife my most intimate companion. But that sillychild!--absurd! Nevertheless, the freshness and enthusiasm of your lovetouched me; you asked my aid, and I gave it. Perhaps I did believe thatwhen you saw more of Lilian Ashleigh you would be cured of a fancyconceived by the eye--I should have known better what dupes the wisest mencan be to the witcheries of a fair face and eighteen! When I found yourillusion obstinate, I wrenched myself away from a vain regret, turned tomy own schemes and my own ambition, and smiled bitterly to think that, inpressing you to propose so hastily to Lilian, I made your blind passion anagent in my own plans. Enough of this. I speak thus openly and boldly toyou now, because now I have not a sentiment that can interfere with thedispassionate soundness of my counsels. I repeat, you cannot now marryLilian Ashleigh; I cannot take my daughter to visit her; I cannot destroythe social laws that I myself have set in my petty kingdom. "

"Be it as you will. I have pleaded for her while she is still LilianAshleigh. I plead for no one to whom I have once given my name. Beforethe woman whom I have taken from the altar, I can place, as a shieldsufficient, my strong breast of man. Who has so deep an interest inLilian's purity as I have? Who is so fitted to know the exact truth ofevery whisper against her? Yet when I, whom you admit to have somereputation for shrewd intelligence, --I, who tracked her way, --I, whorestored her to her home, --when I, Allen Fenwick, am so assured of herinviolable innocence in thought as in deed, that I trust my honour to herkeeping, --surely, surely, I confute the scandal which you yourself do notbelieve, though you refuse to reject and to annul it?"

"Do not deceive yourself, Allen Fenwick, " said she, still standing besideme, her countenance now hard and stern. "Look where I stand, I am theWorld! The World, not as satirists depreciate, or as optimists extol itsimmutable properties, its all-persuasive authority. I am the World! Andmy voice is the World's voice when it thus warns you. Should you makethis marriage, your dignity of character and position would be gone! Ifyou look only to lucre and professional success, possibly they may notultimately suffer. You have skill, which men need; their need may stilldraw patients to your door and pour guineas into your purse. But you havethe pride, as well as the birth of a gentleman, and the wounds to thatpride will be hourly chafed and never healed. Your strong breast of manhas no shelter to the frail name of woman. The World, in its health, willlook down on your wife, though its sick may look up to you. This is notall. The World, in its gentlest mood of indulgence, will saycompassionately, 'Poor man! how weak, and how deceived! What anunfortunate marriage!' But the World is not often indulgent, --it looksmost to the motives most seen on the surface. And the World will morefrequently say, 'No; much too clever a man to be duped! Miss Ashleigh hadmoney. A good match to the man who liked gold better than honour. '"

I sprang to my feet, with difficulty suppressing my rage; and, rememberingit was a woman who spoke to me, "Farewell, madam, " said I, through mygrinded teeth. "Were you, indeed, the Personation of The World, whosemean notions you mouth so calmly, I could not disdain you more. " I turnedto the door, and left her still standing erect and menacing, the hardsneer on her resolute lip, the red glitter in her remorseless eye. 

CHAPTER LVIII. 

If ever my heart vowed itself to Lilian, the vow was now the most trustfuland the most sacred. I had relinquished our engagement before; but thenher affection seemed, no matter from what cause; so estranged from me, that though I might be miserable to lose her, I deemed that she would beunhappy in our union. Then, too, she was the gem and darling of thelittle world in which she lived; no whisper assailed her: now I knew thatshe loved me; I knew that her estrangement had been involuntary; I knewthat appearances wronged her, and that they never could be explained. Iwas in the true position of man to woman: I was the shield, the bulwark, the fearless confiding protector! Resign her now because the worldbabbled, because my career might be impeded, because my good name might beimpeached, --resign her, and, in that resignation, confirm all that wassaid against her! Could I do so, I should be the most craven ofgentlemen, the meanest of men!

I went to Mrs. Ashleigh, and entreated her to hasten my union with herdaughter, and fix the marriage-day. 

I found the poor lady dejected and distressed. She was now sufficientlyrelieved from the absorbing anxiety for Lilian to be aware of the changeon the face of that World which the woman I had just quitted personifiedand concentred; she had learned the cause from the bloodless lips of MissBrabazon. 

"My child! my poor child!" murmured the mother. "And she soguileless, --so sensitive! Could she know what is said, it would kill her. She would never marry you, Allen, --she would never bring shame to you!"

"She never need learn the barbarous calumny. Give her to me, and at once;patients, fortune, fame, are not found only at L----. Give her to me atonce. But let me name a condition: I have a patrimonial independence, Ihave amassed large savings, I have my profession and my repute. I cannottouch her fortune--I cannot, --never can! Take it while you live; when youdie, leave it to accumulate for her children, if children she have; notto me; not to her--unless I am dead or ruined!"

"Oh, Allen, what a heart! what a heart! No, not heart, Allen, --that birdin its cage has a heart: soul--what a soul!"

CHAPTER LIX. 

How innocent was Lilian's virgin blush when I knelt to her, and prayedthat she would forestall the date that had been fixed for our union, andbe my bride before the breath of the autumn had withered the pomp ofthewoodland and silenced the song of the birds! Meanwhile, I was sofearfully anxious that she should risk no danger of hearing, even ofsurmising, the cruel slander against her--should meet no cold contemptuouslooks, above all, should be safe from the barbed talk of Mrs. Poyntz--thatI insisted on the necessity of immediate change of air and scene. Iproposed that we should all three depart, the next day, for the banks ofmy own beloved and native Windermere. By that pure mountain air, Lilian'shealth would be soon re-established; in the church hallowed to me by thegraves of my fathers our vows should be plighted. No calumny had evercast a shadow over those graves. I felt as if my bride would be safer inthe neighbourhood of my mother's tomb. 

I carried my point: it was so arranged. Mrs. Ashleigh, however, wasreluctant to leave before she had seen her dear friend, Margaret Poyntz. I had not the courage to tell her what she might expect to hear from thatdear friend, but, as delicately as I could, I informed her that I hadalready seen the Queen of the Hill, and contradicted the gossip that hadreached her; but that as yet, like other absolute sovereigns, the Queen ofthe Hill thought it politic to go with the popular stream, reserving allcheck on its direction till the rush of its torrent might slacken; andthat it would be infinitely wiser in Mrs. Ashleigh to postponeconversation with Mrs. Poyntz until Lilian's return to L---- as my wife. Slander by that time would have wearied itself out, and Mrs. Poyntz(assuming her friendship to Mrs. Ashleigh to be sincere) would then beenabled to say with authority to her subjects, "Dr. Fenwick alone knowsthe facts of the story, and his marriage with Miss Ashleigh refutes allthe gossip to her prejudice. "

I made that evening arrangements with a young and rising practitioner tosecure attendance on my patients during my absence. I passed the greaterpart of the night in drawing up memoranda to guide my proxy in each case, however humble the sufferer. This task finished, I chanced, in searchingfor a small microscope, the wonders of which I thought might interest andamuse Lilian, to open a drawer in which I kept the manuscript of mycherished Physiological Work, and, in so doing, my eye fell upon the wandwhich I had taken from Margrave. I had thrown it into that drawer on myreturn home, after restoring Lilian to her mother's house, and, in theanxiety which had subsequently preyed upon my mind, had almost forgottenthe strange possession I had as strangely acquired. There it now lay, theinstrument of agencies over the mechanism of nature which no doctrineadmitted by my philosophy could accept, side by side with the presumptuouswork which had analyzed the springs by which Nature is moved, and decidedthe principles by which reason metes out, from the inch of its knowledge, the plan of the Infinite Unknown. 

I took up the wand and examined it curiously. It was evidently the workof an age far remote from our own, scored over with half-obliteratedcharacters in some Eastern tongue, perhaps no longer extant. I found thatit was hollow within. A more accurate observation showed, in the centreof this hollow, an exceedingly fine thread-like wire, the unattached endof which would slightly touch the palm when the wand was taken into thehand. Was it possible that there might be a natural and even a simplecause for the effects which this instrument produced? Could it serve tocollect, from that great focus of animal heat and nervous energy which isplaced in the palm of the human hand, some such latent fluid as that whichReichenbach calls the "odic, " and which, according to him, "rushes throughand pervades universal Nature"? After all, why not? For how manycenturies lay unknown all the virtues of the loadstone and the amber? Itis but as yesterday that the forces of vapour have become to men geniimore powerful than those conjured up by Aladdin; that light, at a touch, springs forth from invisible air; that thought finds a messenger swifterthan the wings of the fabled Afrite. As, thus musing, my hand closed overthe wand, I felt a wild thrill through my frame. I recoiled; I wasalarmed lest (according to the plain common-sense theory of Julius Faber)I might be preparing my imagination to form and to credit its ownillusions. Hastily I laid down the wand. But then it occurred to me thatwhatever its properties, it had so served the purposes of the dreadFascinator from whom it had been taken, that he might probably seek torepossess himself of it; he might contrive to enter my house in myabsence; more prudent to guard in my own watchful keeping theincomprehensible instrument of incomprehensible arts. I resolved, therefore, to take the wand with me, and placed it in my travelling-trunk, with such effects as I selected for use in the excursion that was tocommence with the morrow. I now lay down to rest, but I could not sleep. The recollections of the painful interview with Mrs. Poyntz became vividand haunting. It was clear that the sentiment she had conceived for mewas that of no simple friendship, --something more or something less, butcertainly something else; and this conviction brought before me that proudhard face, disturbed by a pang wrestled against but not subdued, and thatclear metallic voice, troubled by the quiver of an emotion which, perhaps, she had never analyzed to herself. I did not need her own assurance toknow that this sentiment was not to be confounded with a love which shewould have despised as a weakness and repelled as a crime; it was aninclination of the intellect, not a passion of the heart. But still itadmitted a jealousy little less keen than that which has love for itscause, --so true it is that jealousy is never absent where self-love isalways present. Certainly, it was no susceptibility of sober friendshipwhich had made the stern arbitress of a coterie ascribe to her interestin me her pitiless judgment of Lilian. Strangely enough, with the imageof this archetype of conventional usages and the trite social life, camethat of the mysterious Margrave, surrounded by all the attributes withwhich superstition clothes the being of the shadowy border-land that liesbeyond the chart of our visual world itself. By what link were creaturesso dissimilar riveted together in the metaphysical chain of association?Both had entered into the record of my life when my life admitted its ownfirst romance of love. Through the aid of this cynical schemer I had beenmade known to Lilian. At her house I had heard the dark story of thatLouis Grayle, with whom, in mocking spite of my reason, conjectures, whichthat very reason must depose itself before it could resolve intodistempered fancies, identified the enigmatical Margrave. And now bothshe, the representative of the formal world most opposed to visionarycreeds, and he, who gathered round him all the terrors which haunt therealm of fable, stood united against me, --foes with whom the intellect Ihad so haughtily cultured knew not how to cope. Whatever assault I mightexpect from either, I was unable to assail again. Alike, then, in this, are the Slander and the Phantom, --that which appalls us most in theirpower over us is our impotence against them. 

But up rose the sun, chasing the shadows from the earth, and brighteninginsensibly the thoughts of man. After all, Margrave had been baffled anddefeated, whatever the arts he had practised and the secrets he possessed. It was, at least, doubtful whether his evil machinations would be renewed. He had seemed so incapable of long-sustained fixity of purpose, that itwas probable he was already in pursuit of some new agent or victim; and asto this commonplace and conventional spectre, the so-called World, if itis everywhere to him whom it awes, it is nowhere to him who despises it. What was the good or bad word of a Mrs. Poyntz to me? Ay, but to Lilian?There, indeed, I trembled; but still, even in trembling, it was sweet tothink that my home would be her shelter, --my choice her vindication. Ah!how unutterably tender and reverential Love becomes when it assumes theduties of the guardian, and hallows its own heart into a sanctuary ofrefuge for the beloved!

CHAPTER LX. 

The beautiful lake! We two are on its grassy margin, --twilight meltinginto night; the stars stealing forth, one after one. What a wonderfulchange is made within us when we come from our callings amongst men, chafed, wearied, wounded; gnawed by our cares, perplexed by the doubts ofour very wisdom, stung by the adder that dwells in cities, --Slander; nay, even if renowned, fatigued with the burden of the very names that we havewon! What a change is made within us when suddenly we find ourselvestransported into the calm solitudes of Nature, --into scenes familiar toour happy dreaming childhood; back, back from the dusty thoroughfares ofour toil-worn manhood to the golden fountain of our youth! Blessed isthe change, even when we have no companion beside us to whom the heartcan whisper its sense of relief and joy. But if the one in whom all ourfuture is garnered up be with us there, instead of that weary World whichhas so magically vanished away from the eye and the thought, then does thechange make one of those rare epochs of life in which the charm is thestillness. In the pause from all by which our own turbulent struggles forhappiness trouble existence, we feel with a rapt amazement how calm athing it is to be happy. And so as the night, in deepening, brightened, Lilian and I wandered by the starry lake. Conscious of no evil inourselves, how secure we felt from evil! A few days more--a few daysmore, and we two should be as one! And that thought we uttered in manyforms of words, brooding over it in the long intervals of enamouredsilence. 

And when we turned back to the quiet inn at which we had taken up ourabode, and her mother, with her soft face, advanced to meet us, I said toLilian, --

"Would that in these scenes we could fix our home for life, away and afarfrom the dull town we have left behind us, with the fret of its wearyingcares and the jar of its idle babble!"

"And why not, Allen? Why not? But no, you would not be happy. "

"Not be happy, and with you? Sceptic, by what reasoning do you arrive atthat ungracious conclusion?"

"The heart loves repose and the soul contemplation, but the mind needsaction. Is it not so?"

"Where learned you that aphorism, out of place on such rosy lips?"

"I learned it in studying you, " murmured Lilian, tenderly. 

Here Mrs. Ashleigh joined us. For the first time I slept under the sameroof as Lilian. And I forgot that the universe contained an enigma tosolve or an enemy to fear. 

CHAPTER LXI. 

Twenty days--the happiest my life had ever known--thus glided on. Apartfrom the charm which love bestows on the beloved, there was that inLilian's conversation which made her a delightful companion. Whether itwas that, in this pause from the toils of my career, my mind could morepliantly supple itself to her graceful imagination, or that herimagination was less vague and dreamy amidst those rural scenes, whichrealized in their loveliness and grandeur its long-conceived ideals, thanit had been in the petty garden-ground neighboured by the stir and hubbubof the busy town, --in much that I had once slighted or contemned as thevagaries of undisciplined fancy, I now recognized the sparkle and play ofan intuitive genius, lighting up many a depth obscure to instructedthought. It is with some characters as with the subtler and more etherealorder of poets, --to appreciate them we must suspend the course ofartificial life; in the city we call them dreamers, on the mountain-top wefind them interpreters. 

In Lilian, the sympathy with Nature was not, as in Margrave, from thejoyous sense of Nature's lavish vitality; it was refined into exquisiteperception of the diviner spirit by which that vitality is informed. Thus, like the artist, from outward forms of beauty she drew forth thecovert types, lending to things the most familiar exquisite meaningsunconceived before. For it is truly said by a wise critic of old, that"the attribute of Art is to suggest infinitely more than it expresses;"and such suggestions, passing from the artist's innermost thought intothe mind that receives them, open on and on into the Infinite of Ideas, asa moonlit wave struck by a passing oar impels wave upon wave along onetrack of light. 

So the days glided by, and brought the eve of our bridal morn. It hadbeen settled that, after the ceremony (which was to be performed bylicense in the village church, at no great distance, which adjoined mypaternal home, now passed away to strangers), we should make a shortexcursion into Scotland, leaving Mrs. Ashleigh to await our return at thelittle inn. 

I had retired to my own room to answer some letters from anxious patients, and having finished these I looked into my trunk for a Guide-Book to theNorth, which I had brought with me. My hand came upon Margrave's wand, and remembering that strange thrill which had passed through me when Ilast handled it, I drew it forth, resolved to examine calmly if I coulddetect the cause of the sensation. It was not now the time of night inwhich the imagination is most liable to credulous impressions, nor was Inow in the anxious and jaded state of mind in which such impressions maybe the more readily conceived. The sun was slowly setting over thedelicious landscape; the air cool and serene; my thoughtscollected, --heart and conscience alike at peace. I took, then, the wand, and adjusted it to the palm of the hand as I had done before. I felt theslight touch of the delicate wire within, and again the thrill! I did notthis time recoil; I continued to grasp the wand, and sought deliberatelyto analyze my own sensations in the contact. There came over me anincreased consciousness of vital power; a certain exhilaration, elasticity, vigour, such as a strong cordial may produce on a faintingman. All the forces of my frame seemed refreshed, redoubled; and as sucheffects on the physical system are ordinarily accompanied by correspondenteffects on the mind, so I was sensible of a proud elation of spirits, --akind of defying, superb self-glorying. All fear seemed blotted out frommy thought, as a weakness impossible to the grandeur and might whichbelong to Intellectual Man; I felt as if it were a royal delight to scornEarth and its opinions, brave Hades and its spectres. Rapidly thisnew-born arrogance enlarged itself into desires vague but daring. My mindreverted to the wild phenomena associated with its memories of Margrave. I said half-aloud, "if a creature so beneath myself in constancy of willand completion of thought can wrest from Nature favours so marvellous, what could not be won from her by me, her patient persevering seeker?What if there be spirits around and about, invisible to the common eye, but whom we can submit to our control; and what if this rod be chargedwith some occult fluid, that runs through all creation, and can be sodisciplined as to establish communication wherever life and thought canreach to beings that live and think? So would the mystics of old explainwhat perplexes me. Am I sure that the mystics of old duped them selvesor their pupils? This, then, this slight wand, light as a reed in mygrasp, this, then, was the instrument by which Margrave sent hisirresistible will through air and space, and by which I smote himself, inthe midst of his tiger-like wrath, into the helplessness of a sick man'sswoon! Can the instrument at this distance still control him; if nowmeditating evil, disarm and disable his purpose?" Involuntarily, as Irevolved these ideas, I stretched forth the wand, with a concentredenergy of desire that its influence should reach Margrave and commandhim. And since I knew not his whereabout, yet was vaguely aware that, according to any conceivable theory by which the wand could be supposedto carry its imagined virtues to definite goals in distant space, itshould be pointed in the direction of the object it was intended toaffect, so I slowly moved the wand as if describing a circle; and thus, insome point of the circle--east, west, north, or south--the direction couldnot fail to be true. Before I had performed half the circle, the wand ofitself stopped, resisting palpably the movement of my hand to impel itonward. Had it, then, found the point to which my will was guiding it, obeying my will by some magnetic sympathy never yet comprehended by anyrecognized science? I know not; but I had not held it thus fixed formany seconds, before a cold air, well remembered, passed by me, stirringthe roots of my hair; and, reflected against the opposite wall, stood thehateful Scin-Laeca. The Shadow was dimmer in its light than when beforebeheld, and the outline of the features was less distinct; still it wasthe unmistakable lemur, or image, of Margrave. 

And a voice was conveyed to my senses, saying, as from a great distance, and in weary yet angry accents, "You have summoned me? Wherefore?"

I overcame the startled shudder with which, at first, I beheld the Shadowand heard the Voice. 

"I summoned you not, " said I; "I sought but to impose upon you my will, that you should persecute, with your ghastly influences, me and mine nomore. And now, by whatever authority this wand bestows on me, I so abjureand command you!"

I thought there was a sneer of disdain on the lip through which the answerseemed to come, --

"Vain and ignorant, it is but a shadow you command. My body you have castinto a sleep, and it knows not that the shadow is here; nor, when itwakes, will the brain be aware of one reminiscence of the words that youutter or the words that you hear. "

"What, then, is this shadow that simulates the body? Is it that which inpopular language is called the soul?"

"It is not: soul is no shadow. "

"What then?"

"Ask not me. Use the wand to invoke Intelligences higher than mine. "

"And how?"

"I will tell you not. Of yourself you may learn, if you guide the wand byyour own pride of will and desire; but in the hands of him who has learnednot the art, the wand has its dangers. Again I say you have summoned me!Wherefore?"

"Lying shade, I summoned thee not. "

"So wouldst thou say to the demons, did they come in their terrible wrath, when the bungler, who knows not the springs that he moves, calls them upunawares, and can neither control nor dispel. Less revengeful than they, I leave thee unharmed, and depart. "

"Stay. If, as thou sayest, no command I address to thee--to thee, who artonly the image or shadow--can have effect on the body and mind of thebeing whose likeness thou art, still thou canst tell me what passes now inhis brain. Does it now harbour schemes against me through the woman Ilove? Answer truly. "

"I reply for the sleeper, of whom I am more than a likeness, though onlythe shadow. His thought speaks thus: 'I know, Allen Fenwick, that in theeis the agent I need for achieving the end that I seek. Through the womanthou lovest, I hope to subject thee. A grief that will harrow thy heartis at hand; when that grief shall befall, thou wilt welcome my coming. Inme alone thy hope will be placed; through me alone wilt thou seek a pathout of thy sorrow. I shall ask my conditions: they will make thee my tooland my slave!'"

The shadow waned, --it was gone. I did not seek to detain it, nor, had Isought, could I have known by what process. But a new idea now possessedme. This shadow, then, that had once so appalled and controlled me, was, by its own confession, nothing more than a shadow! It had spoken ofhigher Intelligences; from them I might learn what the Shadow could notreveal. As I still held the wand firmer and firmer in my grasp, mythoughts grew haughtier and bolder. Could the wand, then, bring thoseloftier beings thus darkly referred to before me? With that thought, intense and engrossing, I guided the wand towards the space, openingboundless and blue from the casement that let in the skies. The wand nolonger resisted my hand. 

In a few moments I felt the floors of the room vibrate; the air wasdarkened; a vaporous, hazy cloud seemed to rise from the ground withoutthe casement; an awe, infinitely more deep and solemn than that which theScin-Laeca had caused in its earliest apparition, curdled through myveins, and stilled the very beat of my heart. 

At that moment I heard, without, the voice of Lilian, singing a simple, sacred song which I had learned at my mother's knees, and taught to herthe day before: singing low, and as with a warning angel's voice. By anirresistible impulse I dashed the wand to the ground, and bowed my head asI had bowed it when my infant mind comprehended, without an effort, mysteries more solemn than those which perplexed me now. Slowly I raisedmy eyes, and looked round; the vaporous, hazy cloud had passed away, ormelted into the ambient rose-tints amidst which the sun had sunk. 

Then, by one of those common reactions from a period of overstrainedexcitement, there succeeded to that sentiment of arrogance and daring withwhich these wild, half-conscious invocations had been fostered andsustained, a profound humility, a warning fear. 

"What!" said I, inly, "have all those sound resolutions, which my reasonfounded on the wise talk of Julius Faber, melted away in the wrack ofhaggard, dissolving fancies! Is this my boasted intellect, my vauntedscience! I--I, Allen Fenwick, not only the credulous believer, but theblundering practitioner, of an evil magic! Grant what may be possible, however uncomprehended, --grant that in this accursed instrument ofantique superstition there be some real powers--chemical, magnetic, nomatter what-by which the imagination can be aroused, inflamed, deluded, sothat it shapes the things I have seen, speaks in the tones I haveheard, --grant this, shall I keep ever ready, at the caprice of will, aconstant tempter to steal away my reason and fool my senses? Or if, onthe other hand, I force my sense to admit what all sober men must reject;if I unschool myself to believe that in what I have just experienced thereis no mental illusion; that sorcery is a fact, and a demon world has gateswhich open to a key that a mortal can forge, --who but a saint would notshrink from the practice of powers by which each passing thought of illmight find in a fiend its abettor? In either case--in any case--while Ikeep this direful relic of obsolete arts, I am haunted, --cheated out of mysenses, unfitted for the uses of life. If, as my ear or my fancy informsme, grief--human grief--is about to befall me, shall I, in the sting ofimpatient sorrow, have recourse to an aid which, the same voice declares, will reduce me to a tool and a slave, --tool and slave to a being I dreadas a foe? Out on these nightmares! and away with the thing that bewitchesthe brain to conceive them!"

I rose; I took up the wand, holding it so that its hollow should not reston the palm of the hand. I stole from the house by the back way, in orderto avoid Lilian, whose voice I still heard, singing low, on the lawn infront. I came to a creek, to the bank of which a boat was moored, undidits chain, rowed on to a deep part of the lake, and dropped the wand intoits waves. It sank at once; scarcely a ripple furrowed the surface, not abubble arose from the deep. And, as the boat glided on, the star mirroreditself on the spot where the placid waters had closed over the tempter toevil. 

Light at heart, I sprang again on the shore, and hastening to Lilian, where she stood on the silvered, shining sward, clasped her to my breast. 

"Spirit of my life!" I murmured, "no enchantments for me but thine! Thineare the spells by which creation is beautified, and, in that beauty, hallowed. What though we can see not into the measureless future from theverge of the moment; what though sorrow may smite us while we are dreamingof bliss, let the future not rob me of thee, and a balm will be found foreach wound! Love me ever as now, oh, my Lilian; troth to troth, side byside, till the grave!"

"And beyond the grave, " answered Lilian, softly. 

CHAPTER LXII. 

Our vows are exchanged at the altar, the rite which made Lilian my wife isperformed; we are returned from the church amongst the hills, in which myfathers had worshipped; the joy-bells that had pealed for my birth hadrung for my marriage. Lilian has gone to her room to prepare for ourbridal excursion; while the carriage we have hired is waiting at the door. I am detaining her mother on the lawn, seeking to cheer and compose herspirits, painfully affected by that sense of change in the relations ofchild and parent which makes itself suddenly felt by the parent's heart onthe day that secures to the child another heart on which to lean. 

But Mrs. Ashleigh's was one of those gentle womanly natures which, ifeasily afflicted, are easily consoled. And, already smiling through hertears, she was about to quit me and join her daughter, when one of theinn-servants came to me with some letters, which had just been deliveredby the postman. As I took them from the servant, Mrs. Ashleigh asked ifthere were any for her. She expected one from her housekeeper at L----, who had been taken ill in her absence, and about whom the kind mistressfelt anxious. The servant replied that there was no letter for her, butone directed to Miss Ashleigh, which he had just sent up to the younglady. 

Mrs. Ashleigh did not doubt that her housekeeper had written to Lilian, whom she had known from the cradle and to whom she was tenderly attached, instead of to her mistress; and, saying something to me to that effect, quickened her steps towards the house. 

I was glancing over my own letters, chiefly from patients, with a rapideye, when a cry of agony, a cry as if of one suddenly stricken to theheart, pierced my ear, --a cry from within the house. "Heavens! was thatLilian's voice?" The same doubt struck Mrs. Ashleigh, who had alreadygained the door. She rushed on, disappearing within the threshold andcalling to me to follow. I bounded forward, passed her on the stairs, wasin Lilian's room before her. 

My bride was on the floor prostrate, insensible: so still, so colourless, that my first dreadful thought was that life had gone. In her hand was aletter, crushed as with a convulsive sudden grasp. 

It was long before the colour came back to her cheek, before the breathwas perceptible on her lip. She woke, but not to health, not to sense. Hours were passed in violent convulsions, in which I momentarily fearedher death. To these succeeded stupor, lethargy, not benignant sleep. That night, my bridal night, I passed as in some chamber to which I hadbeen summoned to save youth from the grave. At length--at length--lifewas rescued, was assured! Life came back, but the mind was gone. Sheknew me not, nor her mother. She spoke little and faintly; in the wordsshe uttered there was no reason. 

I pass hurriedly on; my experience here was in fault, my skillineffectual. Day followed day, and no ray came back to the darkenedbrain. We bore her, by gentle stages, to London. I was sanguine of goodresult from skill more consummate than mine, and more especially devotedto diseases of the mind. I summoned the first advisers. In vain! invain!

CHAPTER LXIII. 

And the cause of this direful shock? Not this time could it be traced tosome evil spell, some phantasmal influence. The cause was clear, andmight have produced effects as sinister on nerves of stronger fibre ifaccompanied by a heart as delicately sensitive, an honour as exquisitelypure. 

The letter found in her hand was without name; it was dated from L----, and bore the postmark of that town. It conveyed to Lilian, in the bitingwords which female malice can make so sharp, the tale we had soughtsedulously to guard from her ear, --her flight, the construction thatscandal put upon it. It affected for my blind infatuation a contemptuouspity; it asked her to pause before she brought on the name I offered toher an indelible disgrace. If she so decided, she was warned not toreturn to L----, or to prepare there for the sentence that would excludeher from the society of her own sex. I cannot repeat more, I cannotminute down all that the letter expressed or implied, to wither the orangeblossoms in a bride's wreath. The heart that took in the venom cast itspoison on the brain, and the mind fled before the presence of a thought sodeadly to all the ideas which its innocence had heretofore conceived. 

I knew not whom to suspect of the malignity of this mean and miserableoutrage, nor did I much care to know. The handwriting, though evidentlydisguised, was that of a woman, and, therefore, had I discovered theauthor, my manhood would have forbidden me the idle solace of revenge. Mrs. Poyntz, however resolute and pitiless her hostility when oncearoused, was not without a certain largeness of nature irreconcilable withthe most dastardly of all the weapons that envy or hatred can supply tothe vile. She had too lofty a self-esteem and too decorous a regard forthe moral sentiment of the world that she typified, to do, or connive at, an act which degrades the gentlewoman. Putting her aside, what otherfemale enemy had Lilian provoked? No matter! What other woman at L----was worth the condescension of a conjecture?

After listening to all that the ablest of my professional brethren in themetropolis could suggest to guide me, and trying in vain their remedies, Ibrought back my charge to L----. Retaining my former residence for thevisits of patients, I engaged, for the privacy of my home, a house twomiles from the town, secluded in its own grounds, and guarded by highwalls. 

Lilian's mother removed to my mournful dwelling-place. Abbot's House, inthe centre of that tattling coterie, had become distasteful to her, and tome it was associated with thoughts of anguish and of terror. I could not, without a shudder, have entered its grounds, --could not, without a stab atthe heart, have seen again the old fairy-land round the Monks' Well, northe dark cedar-tree under which Lilian's hand had been placed in mine; anda superstitious remembrance, banished while Lilian's angel face hadbrightened the fatal precincts, now revived in full force. The dyingman's curse--had it not been fulfilled?

A new occupant for the old house was found within a week after Mrs. Ashleigh had written from London to a house-agent at L----, intimating herdesire to dispose of the lease. Shortly before we had gone to Windermere, Miss Brabazon had become enriched by a liberal life-annuity bequeathed toher by her uncle, Sir Phelim. Her means thus enabled her to move from thecomparatively humble lodging she had hitherto occupied to Abbot's House;but just as she had there commenced a series of ostentatiousentertainments, implying an ambitious desire to dispute with Mrs. Poyntzthe sovereignty of the Hill, she was attacked by some severe malady whichappeared complicated with spinal disease, and after my return to L---- Isometimes met her, on the spacious platform of the Hill, drawn alongslowly in a Bath chair, her livid face peering forth from piles of Indianshawls and Siberian furs, and the gaunt figure of Dr. Jones stalking byher side, taciturn and gloomy as some sincere mourner who conducts to thegrave the patron on whose life he him self had conveniently lived. It wasin the dismal month of February that I returned to L----, and I tookpossession of my plighted nuptial home on the anniversary of the very dayin which I had passed through the dead dumb world from the naturalist'sgloomy death-room.