George Washington Flowers Memorial Collection DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ESTABLISHED BY THE FAMILY OF COLONEL FLOWERS ire Room O. 3/tf3> a STRANGE HI- STORY BY SIR E. BULWER LYTTON. i • ^ e* *> oh>^ A STRANGE .STORY, BY SIR E. BULVER LYTTOI, SECOND EDITION. MOBILE : S. H. GO F/iy. EL & CO. 1863. 415312 I «L$\\-«rfk I A STRANGE STORY. ■ CHAPTER I. I.\ the year 18 — I settled as a physician at one of the wealthiest of our greal English towns, which 1 will designate by the initial L . 1 was yei young, bul I had acquired souk- reputation by a professional work which is, 1 believe, still among the received authorities on the subjecl of which it treats. 1 had studied at Edinburgh and at Paris, and had borne away from both those il- lustrious schools of medicine whatever guarantees for future dis- tinction the praise of professors may concede to the ambition of students. On becoming a member of the College of Physicians, 1 made a tour of the principal cities of Europe, taking letters of in- troduction to eminent medical men; and, gathering from many theories and modes of treatment hints to enlarge the foundations of unprejudiced and comprehensive practice, I had resolved to fix my residence in London, lmt before this preparatory tour was completed my resolve was changed by one of those unexpected events which determine the fate man in vain would work out for himself, In passing through the Tyrol, on my way into the north of Italy, 1 found in a small inn, remote from medical attendance, Qglish traveler — seized with acute inflammation of the lungs, and in a state of imminent danger. 1 devoted myself to him night day, and, perhaps more through careful nursing than active remedies, i had the happiness to effect his complete recovery. The traveler proved to be Julius Faber, a physician of great distinc- tion — contented to reside, where he was born, in the' provincial city of L , but whose reputation as a profound and original patho- logist was widely spread, and whose writings had formed no unim- portant part of my special studies. It was during a short holiday excursion, from which he was about to return with renovated vigor, that he had been thus stricken down. The patient so accidentally met with became the founder of my professional fortunes. Hecon- ceived a warm attachment for me ; perhaps the more affectionate 415312 4 A STRANGE STORV. because he was a childless bachelor, and the nephew who would succeed to his wealth evinced no desire to succeed to the toils by which the wealth had been acquired. Tims, ha-ving-an heiMbr the one, he had long looked about for an heir to the owieY fcnd now re- solved on finding that heir in me. So when Ave parted Dr. Faber made me promise to correspond with him regularly, and it was not long before he disclosed by letter the plans he had formed in my favor. He said that he was growing old ; his-prattice was beyond his strength; he needed a partner; he was not disposed to put up to sale the health of patients whom he bad learned to regard as his children. Money was no object to him ; but it was an object close at his heart that the humanity he had served, and the reputation he had acquired should suffer no loss in his choice, of a successor. In fine, he proposed that I should a me to L as his partner, with the view of succeeding to bis entire practice al end of two years, when it was his intention to retire. The opening into fortune thus afforded to me was 01 rely presents itself to a young man enterii a overcrowded fession. And to an aspirant less allured by the desire of fortune than the hope of distinction, the fame of the physician who I generously offered to me the inestimable benefits of his long experi- ence, and his cordial introduction, was in itself an assurance tl metropolitan practice is not essential to a national renown. I went, then, to L , and before t ; . years of my partner- ship had expired, my success justified my kind friend's selection, and far more than realized my own expectations. I was fortunate in effecting some notable cures in the earliest cases submitted to me, and it is every thing in the career of a physician when . luck wins betimes Air I confidence which patients r; Qgthened experience. To the rapid facility which my way was made, some circu sional skill probablj ed from the suspicion of a medical adventurer by the accid birth and fortune. longed to an ancient family (a branch of the once powerful border clan of the Fenwicks), that had for many generations held a fair estate in the neighborhood of Windermere. As an only son 1 had succeeded to that estate ou attaining my majority, and had sold it to pay off the debts which had been made by my father, who had the costly tastes of au antiquarian and collector. The residue on the sale insured me a modest independence apart from the profits of a profession', and as I had not been legally bound to defray my father's debts, so I obtained that character for disinterestedness and integrity which always in England tends to propitiate the public to the successes achieved by industry or talent. Perhaps, too, any professional ability I might possess was the more readily conceded, because I had cultivated with assiduity the sciences and the schol- arship which are collaterally connected witii the study of medicine. Thus, in a word, I established a social position which came in aid A STRANGE STORY. 5 of my professional repute, and silenced much of that envy which usually imbitters and sometimes impedes success. Dr. Faber retired at the end of the two years agreed upon. He went aferoad, and being, though advanced in years, of a frame still it, and habits of mind still inquiring aud eager, he i ommenced a lengthened course of foreign travel, during which our correspond- at first frequent, gradually languished, and finally died away. 1 succeeded at once to the larger pari of the practice which the labors of thirty years had secured to my predecessor. My chief rival was a Dr. Lloyd, a benevolent, fervid man. not without genius — if genius he present where judgment is absent ; not without science, if that maybe science which fails in precision. One of those clever desultory men who, in adopting a profession, do not give up to it the whole force and heat of their minds. Men of that kind habitually accept a mechanical routine, because in the exercise eir ostensible calling their imaginative faculties are drawn away to pursuits more alluring. Therefore, in their proper voca- tion they arc seldom bold or inventive — out of it they are sometimes to excess. And when i ke up a novelty in theirown ision they cherish it with an obstinate tenacity, and an ex- travagant passion, unknown to those quiet philosophers who take up novelties every day, examine them with the sobriety of prac eyes, to 'ay down altogether, modify in part, or accept in v, ;. rding as inductive experiment supports or destroys conjecture. Dr. Lloyd had been esteemed a learned naturalist long before he was admitted to be a tolerable physician. Amidst the privations of his youth he had contrived to form, and with each succeeding year he had perseveringly increased, a zoological collection of ares, nol alive, bur, happily for the beholder,. stuffed or em- balmed. From what I have said it will be truly inferred that Dr. Lloyd's earlier career as a physician had not been brilliant ; but of laic years he had gradually rather aged than worked himself into thai professional authority and station which time confers on a thoroughly respectable man, whom no one is disposed to envy and all are disposed to like. >n'ow in L there were two distinct social circles : that of the wealthy merchants and traders, and that of a few privileged fami- lies, inhabiting a part of the town aloof from the marts of commerce, and called the Abbey Hill. These superb Areopagites exercised over the wives and daughters of the inferior citizens to whom all of L , except the Abbey Hill, owed its prosperity, the same kind of mysterious influence which the fine ladies of May fair and Bel- gravia ale reported to hold over the female denizens of Bloomsbury and Maryiebone. Abbey Hill was not opulent, but it was powerful by a concen- tration of its resources in all matters of patronage. Abbey Hill had its own milliner, and its own draper, its own confectioner, butcher, baker, and tea-dealer, and the patronage of Abbey Hill 6 A STRANGE STORY. was like the patronage of royalty— less lucrative in itself than as a solemn certificate of general merit. The shops on which Abbey Hill conferred its custom were certainly not the cheapest, possibly not the best, But they were undeniably the most imposing. The proprietors were decorously pompous— the shopmen superciliously polite. They could not be more so if they had belonged to the State, and been paid by a public which they benefited and despised, The ladies of Low Town (as the city subjacent to the Hill had been styled from a date remote in the feudal ages) entered those shops with a certain awe, and left them with a certain pride. There they had learned what the Hill approved. There they had bought what the Hill had purchased. It is much in this life to be q sure that we are in the right, whatever that conviction may cost us. Abbey Hill had been in the habit of appointing, among other objects of patronage, its own physician. But that habit had fallen into disuse during the latter years of my predecessor's practice. His superiority over all other medical men in the town bad become so incontestable that, though he was emphatically the doctor of Low Town, the head of its hospitals and infirmaries, and by birth re- lated to its principal traders, still as Abbey Hill was occasionally subject to the physical infirmities of meaner mortals, so on those occasions it deemed it best not to push the point of honor to the wanton sacrifice of life. Since Low Town possessed one of the. most famous physicians in England, Abbey Hill magnanimously resolved not to crush him by a rival. Abbey Hill let him feel its pulse. AVhen my predecessor retired I had presumptuously expected that the Hill would have continued to suspend its normal right to a special physician, and shown to me the same generous favor it had shown to him, who had declared me worthy to succeed to his honors. I had the more excuse for this presumption because the Hill had already allowed me to visit a fair proportion of its invalids, had said some very gracious things to me about the great respecta- bility of the Fenwick family, and sent me some invitations to dinner, and a great many invitations to tea. But my self-conceit received a notable check. Abbey Hill de- clared that the time had come to reassert its dormant privilege — it must have a doctor of its own choosing — a doctor who might, in- deed, be permitted to visit Low Town from motives of humanity or gains but who must emphatically assert his special allegiance to Abbey Hill by fixing his home on that venerable promontory. Miss Brabazon, a spinster of uncertain age, but undoubted pedi- gree, with small fortune; but high nose, which she would pleasantly observe was a proof of her descent from Humphrey Duke of Glou- cester (with whom, indeed, I have no doubt, in spite of chronology, that she very often dined.), was commissioned to inquire of me diplomatically, and without committing Abbey Hill too much by overture, whether I would take a large and anticpaated mansion, in A STRANGE STORY. 7 which abbots were said to have lived many centuries ago, and which was still popularly styled Abbots' House, situated on the verge of the Hill, as in thai case the " Hill" would think of me. " It is a large house for a single man, I allow," said Miss Bra- bazon, candidly; and then added, with a sidelong glance of alarm- ing sweetness, "but when Dr. Fenwick has taken his true position (so old a family !) among Us, he need not long remain single unless he prefer it." I replied, with more asperity than the occasion called for, that I had no thought of changing my residence at present. And if the Hill wauled me, the Hill must send for me. Two days afterwards Dr. Lloyd took Abbots' House, and in less than a week was proclaimed medical adviser to the Hill. The election had been decided by the fiat of a great lady, who reigned supreme on the sacred eminence, under the name and title of Mrs. Colonel Poyntz. " Dr. Fenwick," said this lady, "is a clever young man and a gentleman, but he gives himself airs — the Hill does not allow any airs but its own. Besides, he is a new-comer: resistance to new- comers, and. indeed, to all things new, except caps and novels, is one of the bonds that keep old established societies together. Ac- cordingly, it is by my advice that Dr. Lloyd has taken Abbots' House: the rent would be too high for his means if the Hill did not feel bound in honor to justify the trust he has placed in its patronage. I told him that all my friends, when they had any Hung the matter with them, would send for him; those who are my friends will do so. What the Hill does, plenty of common people down there will do also — so that question is settled ! " And it was settled. Dr. Lloyd, thus taken by the band, soon extended the range of his visits beyond the Hill, which was not precisely a mountain of gold to doctors, and shared with myself, though in a comparatively small degree, the much more lucrative practice of Low Town. I had no cause to grudge his success, nor did I. But to my theories of medicine his diagnosis was shallow, and his prescriptions obsolete. When we were summoned to a joint consultation, our views as to the proper course of treatment seldom agreed. Doubt- less be thought I ought to have deferred to his seniority in years, bin 1 held the doctrine which youth deems a truth and age a para- dox, namely, that in science the young men are the practical elders, inasmuch as they are schooled in the latest experiences science has gathered up, while their seniors are cramped by the dogmas they schooled to believe when the world was some decades the younger. Meanwhile my reputation continued rapidly to advance ; it be- came more than local; my advice was sought even by patients from the metropolis. That ambition which, conceived in early youth, had decided my career and sweetened all its labors — the 8 A STRANGE STORY. ambition to take a rank and leave a name as one of the great pathologists to whom humanity accords a grateful, if calm, renown —saw before it a level field and a certain goal. I know not whether a success far beyond that usually attained at the age I had reached served to increase, but it seemed to my- self to justify the main characteristics of my moral organization — intellectual pride. Though mild and gentle to the sufferers under my care, as a necessary element of professional duty, I was intolerant of contra- diction from those who belonged to my calling, or even from those who, in general opinion, opposed my favorite theories. I had espoused a school of medical philosophy severely rigid in its inductive logic. My creed was that of stem materialism. I had a contempt for the understanding of men who accepted with credulity what they could not explain by reason. My favorite phrase was " common sense." At the same time I had no preju- dice against bold discovery, and discovery necessitates conjecture ; but I dismissed as idle all conjecture that could not be brought to a practical test. As in medicine I had been the pupil of Broussais, so in meta- physics I was the disciple of Condillac. 1 believed with that philosopher that "all our knowledge we owe to Nature: that in the beginning we can only instruct ourselves through her lessons, and that the whole art of reasoning consists in continuing as she has compelled us to commence." Keeping natural philosophy apart from the doctrines of revelation, 1 never assailed the last, but I contended that by the first no accurate reasoner could arrive at the existence of the soul as a third principle of being equally distinct from mind and body. That by a miracle man might live again, was a question of faith and not of understanding. I left faith to religion, and banished it from philosophy. How define with a precision to satisfy the logic of philosophy what was to live "again ? The body 1 We know that the body rests in its grave till by the process of decomposition its elemental parts enter into other forms of matter. The mind ? But the mind was as clearly the re- sult of the bodily organization as the music of the harpsichord is the result of the instrumental mechanism. The mind shared the decreptitude of the body in extreme old age, and in the full vigor of youth a sudden injury to the brain might forever destroy the in- tellect of a Plato or a Shakspeare, But the third principle — the soul — the something lodged within the body, which yet was to survive it? Where was the soul hid out of the ken of the anatomist 1 When philosophers attempted to define it, were they not compelled to confound its nature and its actions with those of the mind ? Could they reduce it to the mere moral sense, varying accordii education, circumstances, and physical constitution] But even the moral sense in the most virtuous of men may be swept away by a fever. Such at the time I now speak of were the views I held. A STRAXGE STORY. 9 Views certainly not original nor pleasing ; but I cherished them willi as fond a tenacity as if they had been consolatory truths <>f i I was the first discoverer. I was intolerant to those who maintained opposite doctrines — despised theim as irrational, or dis- liked them as insincere. Certainly if I had fulfilled the ci which my ambition predicted — become the founder of a new school in pathology, and summed up my theories in academical lectures, i should have added another authority, however feeble, to the sects which circumscribe the interests of man to the life which has close in his grave. Possibly thai which I have called my intellectual pride was i nourished than 1 should have been willing to grant by that self-reliance which an unusual degree of physical power is apl to bestow. Nature had blest me with the thews of an athlete. Among the hardy youths of the Northern Athens I had been preemin distinguished for feats of activity and strength. ^Iy mental labors and the anxiety which is inseparable from the conscientious re- sponsibilities of the medical profession, kept my health below par of keen enjoyment, but had in no way diminished my rare mus- cular force. I walked through the crowd with the firm step and lofty crest of the mailed knight of old, who felt himself, in biscase- menl of iron, a match against numbers. Thus the sense of a v. -bust individuality, strong alike in disciplined reason and animal vigor — habituated to aid ol ling no aid for itself — contribute! render me imperious in will and arrogant in opinion. Nor ' such defects injurious to me in my profession ; on the contrary, aided as they were by a calm manner, and a presence not, without that kind of dignity which is the livery of self-esteem, the to impose respect and inspire trust. CR AFTER II. I had been about six years at L . when I became suddenly involved in a controversy with Dr. Lloyd. Just as this ill-fated man appeared at the culminating point, of his professional he had the imprudence to proclaim himself not only an enthusi advocate of mesmerism, as a curative process, but an arden ■ of the reality of somnambular clairvoyance as an invaluable of certain privileged organizations. To these doctrines I stern- ly opposed myself — the more sternly, perhaps. on these doctrines Dr. Lloyd founded an argument for the existence of soul, independent of mind, as cf m d built thereon a superstruc- ture of physiological phantasies, which, could it be substantiated, would replace every system of metaphysics on which recognized philosophy condescends to disp 10 A STRANGE STORY. About two years before he became a disciple rather of Puysegjur than Mesroer (for Mesnierhad little faith in that gift of dairvox of which Puysegur was, I believe, the first audacious assertory Dr. Lloyd had been afflicted with the lnss of a wife many years younger than himself, and to whom he had been tenderly attached. And this bereavement, in directing the hopes that consoled him to a world beyond the grave, had served perhaps to render him more credulous of the phenomena in which lie greeted additional proofs of purely spiritual existence. Certainly, if, in controverting the notions of another physiologist, I had restricted myself to that fair antagonism which belongs to. scientific disputants anxious only for the truth, I should need no apology for sincere conviction and hon- est argument; but when, with condescending good-nature, as if to a man much younger than himself, who was ignorant of the pheno- mena which he nevertheless denied, Dr. Lloyd invited me to attend his seances and witness his cures, my amour propre became roused and nettled, and it seemed to me necessary to put- down what I as- serted to be too gross an outrage on common sense to justify the ceremony of examination. I wrote, therefore, a small pamphlet mi the subject, in which I exhausted all the weapons that irons lend to contempt. Dr. Lloyd replied, and as he was no very skill- ful arguer, his reply injured him perhaps more than my assault. Meanwhile, I had made some inquiries as to the moral character of his favorite clairvoyants. i imagined that I had learned enough to justify me in treating them as flagrant cheats, and himself as their egregious dupe. Low Town soon ranged itself, with very few exceptions, on my side. The Hill at first seemed disposed to rally round its insulted ician, and to make the dispute a party question, in which the Hill would have been signally worsted, when suddenly the same lady paramount, who had secured to Dr. Lloyd the smile of the Eminence, spoke forth against him, and the Eminence frowned. " Dr. Lloyd," said the Queen of the Hill, " is an amiable creature, but on this subject decidedly cracked, ('racked poets may be all the better for being cracked ; cracked doctors are dangerous. Be- 5, in deserting that old-fashioned routine, his adherenci which made his claim to the Hill's approbation; and unsettling the mind of the Hill with wild revolutionary theories, Dr. LI has betrayed the principles on which the Hill' itself rests its s foundations. Of those principles Dr. Fenwick has made bin champion; and the Hill is bound to support him. There, the question is settled !" And it was settled. % From the moment Mrs. Colonel Poyntz thus issued the word of command, Dr. Lloyd was demolished His pr; well as bis repute. Mortification or anger brought on a stroke of paralysis, which, disabling my opponent, put an end to our con- troversy. An obscure Dr. Jones, who had been the special pupil A STRANGE STORY. 11 and protege" of Dr. Lloyd, offered himself as a candidate for the Mill's tongues and pulses. The Hill gave him little encoui mini. It mi'-;' more tuspended iis electoral privileges, and, with- out insisting on calling me up to ii, ifa quietly called roe in when- ever its health needed other advice than that of its visiting apothe- cary. Again it invited me. sometimes to dinner, often to tea. And again ^Iiss Brabazon assured me by a sidelong? glance that ;, no fault of hers if I were still single. I had almost forgotten the dispute which had obtained for n conspicuous a triumph, when one winter's night 1 was roused from sleep by a, summons to attend Dr. Lloyd, who, attacked by a se stroke a few hours previously, had, on recovering sense, expr< a vehement desire to consult the rival by whom he had sutler, severely. 1 dressed myself in haste ami hurried to hi A February night, sharp and bitter. An iron-gray frost below — a spectral melancholy moon- above. I had to ascend the Abbey Hill by a steep, blind lane between high walls. 1 passed through v gates, which stood wide open, into the garden ground surrounded the old Abbots' House At the end of a short drive the dark and gloomy building cleared itself from le; skeleton tire-, the moon resting keen and cold on its . ables and lofty chimney-stacks. An old woman servant received the door, and, without saying a word, led roe through a Ion-- low hall, and up dreary oak stairs, to a broad landing, at which i d for a moment, listening. Round and about hall, stain and landing, were ranged the dead specimens of the savage world which it had ben the pride of the naturalist's. life to collect. Close where 1 stood yawned the open jaws of the fell anaconda — its lower coils hid, as they rested on the floor below, by the winding of the massive stairs. Against the didl wainscot wails were pend cases stored with grotesque unfamiliar mummies, seen imperfe by the moon that shot through the window-panes, and the candle in the old woman's hands. And as now she turned towards me. nodding her signal to follow, and went on up the shadowy pas rows of gigantic birds — ibis and vulture, and huge sea glaucus— glared at me in the false life of their angry eyes. So I entered the sick-room, and the first glance told me that my art was powerless there. The children of the stricken widower were round his bed, the eldest apparently aboul fifteen, the ybungesl four; one lu- ll — the only female child — was cli i her father's I her face pressed to his bosom, and in that room her sobs alone were loud. As I passed the threshold Dr. Lloyd lifted his face, which had been bent over the weeping child, and gazed on me with an as; of strange glee, which I failed to interpret. Then, as [ stoli ward hi. u softly and slowly, he pressed his lips on the long that, streamed wild over his breast, motioned to a nurse who 12 A STRANGE STORY. stood beside his pillow to take the child away, and, in a voice clearer than I could have expected in one on whose brow lay the unmistakable hand of death, he bade the nurse and the children quit the room. All went sorrowfully, but silently, save the little girl, who, borne off in the nurse's arms, continued to sob as if her heart were breaking. * I was not prepared for a scene so affecting ; it moved me to the quick. My eyes wistfully followed the children, so soon to be orphans, as one after one went out into the dark chill shadow, and amidst the bloodless forms of the dumb bride nature, ranged in grisly vista beyond the death-room of man. And when the last in- fant shape had vanished, and the door closed with a jarring click, my sight wandered loiteringly around the chamber before I could bring myself to fix it on the broken form, beside which I now stood in all that glorious vigor of frame which had fostered the pride of my mind. In the moment consumed by my mournful survey. the whole. aspect of the place impressed itself ineffaceably on life-long remem- brance. Through the high, deep-sunken-casement, acrossj which the thin, faded curtain was but half-drawn, the moonlight rushed, and then settled on the floor in one shroud of while glimmer, lost under the gloom of the death-bed. The roof was low, and seemed lower still by heavy intersecting beams, which 1 might have touched with my lifted hand. And the , tall, guttering caudle by the bed-side, and the flicker from the fire struggling out through the fuel but newly heaped on it, threw their reflection on the ceiling just over my head in a reek of* quivering blackness, like an angry cloud. Suddenly 1 felt my arm grasped, with his left hand (the rigbl side was already lifeless) ; the dying man drew me toward him nearer and nearer, till his lips almosl touched my car. And, in a voice now firm, now splitting into gasp and hiss, thus he said: "I have summoned you to gaze on your own work! You have stricken down my life at the moment when it was most needed by my children, and most serviceable to mankind. Had I lived a few years longer, my children would have entered on manhood, safe from the temptations of want and undejectod by the charity of strangers. Thanks to you, they will be penniless orphans. Fellow-creatures afflicted by maladies your pharmacopoeia had failed to reach, came to me for relief, and they found it. ' The ef- fect of imagination,' you say. What matters, if I directed the imagination to cure? Now you have mocked the unhappy ones out of their" last chance of life. They will suffer and perish. Did you believe me in error? Still* you knew that my object was research into truth. You employed against your brother in art venomous drugs and a poisoned probe. Look at me ! Are you satisfied witb your work ? " I sought to draw back and pluck my arm from the dying man's A STRANGE STORY. 13 grasp. I could not do so without using a force that would have inhuman. His lips drew nearer stiil to my ear. " Vain pretender, do not boast that you brought a genius for eji-Tani to the seryice of science. Science is lenient to all who riment as the test of conjecture. You axe of th< which inquisitors are made. You cry that truth is profane when your dogmas arc questioned. In your shallow presumption you have meted the dominions of nature, and where your eye halts its vision, you say, 'There, nature musl in the bigotry which adds crime to presumption, you would stone the discoverer who, in annexing new realms to her chart, unsettles your arbitrary landmarks. Verily, retribution shall await you. In those spaces which your sight has disdained to explore you shall yourself he a lost, ami bewildered straggler. Hist ! I see "them already ! The gibbering phantoms are gathering round you !" The man's voice stopped abruptly ; his eye fixed in a glazing stare; his hand relaxed its hold; he fell back on his pillow. 1 stole from the room ; on the landing-place J met the nurse and the old woman servant. Happily the children were not there. But 1 heard the wail of the female child from some room not far distant. I whispered hurriedly to the nurse, "All is over!" — pa under the jaws of the vast anaconda — and on through the blind lane between the dead walls — mi through the ghastly streets, under Jiastly moon — went back to my solitary home. CHAPTER III. -It. was some time before I could shake off the impression made on me by the words and look of that dying man. not that my conscience upbraided me. What had I I Denounced that which I held, in common with most men of sense in or out of my profession, to be one ot those illusions by which quackery draws profit from the wonder of ignorance. Was i io blame if 1 had refused to treat with the grave .respect due to rted discovery in legitimate science pretensions to powers akin to the fables of wizards] was 1 to descend from the Acad< i reus science to examine whether a slumbering sibyl could read from a book placed at her back, or tell me at L what at that moment was being done by my friend at the Antipodes '. And whar though Dr. Lloyd himself might be a worthy and si man, and a sincere believer in the extravagances for which he demanded an equal credulity in others, do not honest men even- day incur the penally of ridicule, if, from a defect of good sense. make themselves ridiculous .' Could 1 bave f< that a satire so justly provoked would indict so deadly a wound ? Was I inhumanly barbarous because the antagonist destroyed was morbid- \ 14 A STRANGE STORY. ly sensitive ? My conscience, therefore, made me no reproach, and the public was as little severe as my conscience. The public had been with me in our contest — the public knew nothing of my op- ponent's death-bed accusations — the public knew only that I had attended him in his last moments — it admired the respect to his memory which I evinced in the simple tomb that I placed over his remains, inscribed with an epitaph that did justice to his in- contestible benevolence and integrity :— above all, it saw me walk beside the bier that bore him to his grave — it praised the energy with which I set on foot a subscription for his orphan child- ren, and the generosity with which I headed that subscription by a sum that was large in proportion to my means. To that sum I did not, indeed, limit my contribution. The sobs of the poor female child rang still on my heart. As her grief had been keener than that of her brothers, so she might be subjected to sharper trials than they, when the time came for her to tight her own way through the world; therefore 1 secured to her, but with such precautions that l! ;; d not be traced to my hand, a sum to accumulate till she was of marriageable age, and which then might suffice for a small wedding portion ; or, if she remain- ed single, for an income that would place her beyond the tempta- tion of want, or the bitterness of a servile dependence. That Dr. Lloyd should have died in poverty was a matter of sur- prise at first, for his profits during the last few years had been con- siderable, and his mode of life far from extravagant. Jiut just before the date of our controversy he had been induced to assist. the brother of his lost wife, who was a junior partner in a London bank, with the loan of his accumulated savings. This man proved dishonest; he embezzled that and oilier sums intrusted to him, and tied the country. The same sentiment of conjugal affection which had cost Dr. Lloyd his fortune kept him silent as to the cause of the loss. It was reserved for his executors to disc the treachery of the brother-in-law whom he, poor man, would have generously screened from additional disgrace. The mayor of L . a wealthy and public-spirited merchant, purchased the museum which Dr. Lloyd's passion for natural his- tory had induced him to form ; and the'sum thus obtained, tog* with that raised by subscription, sufficed, not only to discharge all debts due by the deceased, but to insure to the orpans the benefits of an education that might tit at least the boys to enter fairly arm- ed into that game, more of skill than of chance, in which Fortune is really so little blinded that we see, in each turn of her wheel, Wealth and its honors pass away from the lax fingers of ignorance and sloth to the resolute grasp of labor and knowledge. Meanwhile a relation in a distant country undertook the ci ■ of the orphans; they disappeared from the scene, and the tide life in a commercial community soon flowed over the place which the dead man had occupied in the thoughts of his bustling town-folks. A STRANGE STORY. 15 One person at L , and only one, appeared to share and inherit the rancor with which the poor physician bad denounced me on his death-bed. It was a gentleman named Vigors, distantly relat the deceased, and who had been, in point of station, the must emi- nent of Dr. Lloyd's partisans in the controversy with himself; a man of no great scholastic acquirements ; but of respectable abili- ties, lie bad that kind of power which the world concedes. to respectable abilities, when accompanied with a temper more, than usually stern, and a moral character more than usually austere. His ruling passion was to sit in judgment upon others ; and. b a magistrate, he was the most active and the most rigid of ail magistrates L had ever known. Mr. Vigors at first spoke of me with great bitterness, as ha ruined, and in tact killed, his friend by the uncharitable and unfair acerbity which he declared I had brought into what ought to h be in an unprejudiced examination of a simple matter of fact. But finding no sympathy in these charges, he bad the discretion to cease from making them, contenting himself with a solemn shall his head if he heard my name mentioned in terms of praise, and an oracular sentence or two, such as. "Time will show ; " " All's well that ends well," etc. Mr. Vigors, however, mixed very little in mqre convivial intercourse of the towns-people, lie called himself domestic; but, in truth, he was ungenial. A still' man, star with self-esteem, He thought that his dignity of station was not sufficiently acknowledged by the merchants of Low Town, and his superiority of intellect not sufficiently recognized by the occlusives of the Hill. His visits were, therefore, chiefly confined to the houses of neighboring squares, to whom his reputation as a, magis- trate, conjoined with his solemn exterior, made him one of these oracles by which men consent to be awed on condition that the awe is not often inflicted. And though he opened his house three times a week, ii was only to a select few, whom be first fed and then biologized. Electro-biology was very naturally the special enter- tainment of a man whom no intercourse ever pleased in which bis will was not imposed upon others. Therefore h ■ only invited to hie persons whom he could stare into the abnegation of their s, willing to say that beef was lamb, or brandy was coffee, ac- cording as he willed them to say. And, no doubt, the persons asked would have said any thing he willed so long as they had. in substance .as well as in idea, the beef and the brandy, the lamb and the Odffee. I did not, then, often meet Mr. Vigors at die b< in which I occasionally spent my evenings. I heard of his enn i y as a man safe in his home hears the sough of the, wind on the com- mon without. If now and then we chanced to pass in the streets, he looked up at me (he was a small man walking on tip-toe) with the sullen scowl of dislike. And from tin- heighj of my stature 1 dropped upon the small man and sullen scowl th ■ affable smile of supreme indifference. 16 A STRANGE STORY. CHAPTER IV. I had now arrived at that age when an ambitious man, satisfied with his progress in the world without, begins to feel, in the crav- ings of unsatisfied affection, the void of a solitary hearth. I re- solved to marry, and looked out for a wife. I had never hitherto admitted into my life the passion of love. In fact, T had regarded thai passion, even in my earlier youth, with a certain superb con- tempt — as a malady engendered by an effeminate idleness, and red by a sickly imagination. I wished to find in a wife a rational companion and affectionate and trust-worthy friend. No views of matrimony could be less antic, more soberly sensible, than those which I conceived. Nor were my requirements mercenary or presumptous. I oared not for fortune ; I asked nothing fr6m connections. My ambition was exclusively professional ; it could be served by no titled kin- dred, accelerated by no wealthy dower. I was no slave to beauty. I did not seek in a wife the accomplishments of a finishing school- teacher. Having decided that the time had come to select my helpmate, I fmagined that I should find no difficulty in a choice that my reason would approve. But day upon day, week upon week passed away, and though among the families 1 visited there were many young ladies who possessed more than the qualifications with which 1 conceived that I should be amply contented, and by whom I might flatter myself that my proposals would not be disdained, 1 saw not one to whose life-long companionship I should not infinitely have preferred the solitude I found so irksome. One evening, in returning home from visiting a poor female patient whom I attended gratuitously, and whose case demanded more thought than that of any other in my lists — for though it had been considered hopeless in the hospital, and she had come home to die, I felt certain that I could save her. and she seemed ering under my care — one evening, it was the 12th of May, I found myself just before the gates of the house that had been in- habited by Dr. Lloyd. Since his death the house had been unoc- cupied; the rent asked for it by the proprietor was considered high; and from the sacked Hill on which it was situated shy ue.-s or pride banished the wealthier traders. The garden gates stood wide open, as they had stood in the winter night on which I had passed through them to the chamber of death. The remembrance of that death-bed came vividly before me, and the dying man's fantastic threat rang again in my startled ears. An irresistible im- pulse, which I could not then account for, and which I cannot ac count for now — act impulse the reverse of that which usually makes A STRANGE STORY. 17 ns turn away with quickened step from a spot that recalls associa- tions of pain — urged me on through the ojpen gates, up the neg- lected, grass-grown road; urged me to look, under the westering sun of the joyous spring, at that house which I had never seen but in the gloom of a winter night, under the" melancholy moon. As the building came in sight, with dark red bricks, partially over- grown with ivy, 1 perceived that it was no longer unoccupied. I saw forms passing athwart the open windows; a van laden with articles of furniture stood before the door; a servant in livery was beside it giving directions to the men who were unloading, livi- dently some family was just entering into possession. I felt some- what ashamed of my trespass and turned round quickly to retrace my steps. 1 had retreated but a few yards when I saw before me, at the entrance gates, Mr. Vigors, walking beside a lady apparently of middle age; while just at baud a path cut through the shrubs gave a view of a small wicket-gate at the end of the grounds. I felt unwilling not only to meet the lady, whom 1 guessed to be the new occupier, and to whom I should have to make a somewhat awkward apology for intrusion, bat still more to encounter the scornful look of Mr. Vigors, in what appeared to my pride a false or undignified position. Involuntarily, therefore, I turned down tii; path which would favor my escape unobserved. When about half way between the house and the wicket-gate the shrubs that had clothed the path on either side suddenly opened to the bringing into view a circle of sward, surrounded by irregular incuts of did brick-work, partially covered with ferns, creepers, or rock-plants, weeds, or wild-flowers, and in the centre of the circle a fountain, or rather water-cistern, over which was built a Gothic monastic domi , lopy, resting on small Norman columns, tame- worn, dilapidated. A large willow overhung this unmis I ikable relic of the ancient abbey. There was an air of antiquity! romance, legend about this spot, so abruptly disclosed amidst the delicate green of the young shrubberies. But it was not the ruined wall nor the Gothic well that chained my footstep and charmed my eyes. It was a solitary human form — seated there amidst the mournful ruins. The form was so slight, the face so young, that at the first glance I murmured to myself, "What a lovely chUd! " But as my eye lin- gered, it recognized in the upturned, thoughtful brow, in the sweet, serious aspect, in the rounded outlines of that slender shape, the inexpressible dignity of virgin woman. A book was on her lap, at her feci a little basket, half filled with violets and blossoms culled from the rock plants that nestled ami 1st the ruins. Behind her, the willow, like an emerald waterfall, showered down its arching abundant green, bough after bough, from the tree-top to the sward, descending in wavy verdure, bright to- 18 A STRANGE STOBY. ward the summit, in the smile of the setting sun, and darkening into shadow as it neared the earth. She did not notice, she did not se es were fixed upon the horizon, where it sloped furtbe ace, above the tree-tops and the ruins — fixed so intently that mechanically I turned my own gaze to follow the flight of hers. It was as if she watched for some expected familiar sign to grow out from the depths of heaven; perhaps to greet, before other eyes beheld it, the ray of the earliest star. The birds dropped from the boughs on the turf around her, so fe^lessly that one alighted amidst the flowers in the Hit!" basket • at her feet. There is a famous German poem, which 1 had read in my youth, called -'.The Maiden ft d," Variously supposed to' lie an allegory of Spring, or of Poetry, loice of commentators: it seemed to me as if the poem had 1 een made I'm- her. VerUy, indeed, in her poet or pain en an image equally true to either of those adorners of the earth; both outwardly a delight to sense. ;, el both wakeningup thoughts within us, not sad, but akin to sadness. I heard now a step behind me, and a voice which J r< to be thai of Mr. Vigors. 1 broke from the charm by which 1 had been so lingeringly spell-bound, hurried on con. wicket-ga1 descended into common thoroughfare. And tin i n be- I hi the opposite side hi mrcb-spires ; a few more, and the bustling streets ! How immeasurabl; yet how familiarly near to the World in which beingis thai fairy land of romance wl earth before us, when Love steals be hard earth again as Love smili oil' And before that evening 1 had Vigi rs with su- preme indifference — what importance he now assumed in I The lady with whom I had seen him was doubtless the new ti of that house in which the young creature by whom my heart si; strangely moved evidently had her home. Most probabb relation between the two ladies v. i of mother and Mr. Vigors, the friend of one, might himself he related to both — might prejudice them against me — might — here, starting up, I snapped the thread of conjecture, for right before my eyes, on the table beside which I had seated myself on entering tne room, lay a card of invitation : Mas. Poyktz. At Ji Wednesday, May 15th. Early. A STRANt.sE STORY. 19 Mrs. Poyntz— Mrs. Colonel Poyntz ! the Queen of the Hill. There at her house, I could not fail \o learn all aboul the new- comers, who could never without her sanction have settled on her domain. I hastily changed my dress, and, with heating heart, wound my way up the venerable eminence. , I did not pass through the lane which led direct to Abbots' /louse (for that old building Btood solitary amidst its grounds, a little apart from the spacious platform on which the if the Hill was concentered), but up the broad causeway, with visteed gas- lamps ; the gayer shops still unclosed, the tide of busy life only slowly ebbing from the still animated street, on to a square, in which the lour main thorough fares of the city Converged, and which formed the boundary of Low Town. A huge dark archway, popularly called Monk's Gate, al the angle of this square, made the entrance to Abbey Hill. When the arch was passed, one fell at once that one was in the town of a former day. The pavement was narrow and rugged; the shops small, their upper stories pro- jecting, with here and there, plastered fronts, quaintly arabesqued. An ascent, short, hut Steep and tortuous, conducted at once to the old Abbey Church, nobly situated in a vast quadrangle, round which were the genteel and gloomy dwellings of the Areop of the Hill. More genteel and less gloomy than the res) — li- the windows and flowers on the balcony — stood forth, flanked by a garden wall tit either side, the mansion of Mrs. Colonel Poyntz. As I entered the drawing-room I heard the voice of the hostess ; it was a voice clear, decided, metalic, hell-like, uttering these words: "Taken Abbots' House ! I will tell you." CHAPTER VI. Mrs. Poyntz was seated on the sofa; at her right sat, fat Mrs. Bruce, who was a Seoul) lord's grand-daughter^ at her hi; thin Miss Brabazon, who was an Irish baronet's niece. — Around her — a tew seated, many standing — had grouped all the guests, save two old gentlemen, who remained aloof with Col. Poyntz, near the whist-table, waiting for the fourth old gentle- man, who was to make up the rubber, hut who was at that mo- ment, spell-bound in the magic circle, which curiosity, that strong- s' social demons, had attracted round the hostess. "Taken Abbots' House? 1 will tell you. Ah, Dr. Penwick ! charmed to see you. You know Abbots' House is let at last.' Well, Miss Brabazon, dear, you ask who has taken it. I will fell you — a particular friend of mine." " Indeed ! Dear me ! " said Miss Brabazon, looking confused. " I hope I did not say anything to — " I 20 A STRANGE STORY. " Wound ray feelings. Not in the least. Ton said your un- cle. Sir P helim, had a coach-maker named Asbleigb, thai Ashleigh was an uncommon name, though Ashley was a common one ; you intimated an appalling suspicion thai the Mrs. Ashleigh who had come to the Hill was the coach-maker's widow. 1 relieve vour mind — she is not ; she is the widow of Gilbert Ashleigh, of Kirby Hall." " Gilbert Ashleigh," said one of t lie guests, a bachelor, whose parents had reared him for the church, but who, like poor Gold- smith, did not think himself good enough for it — a mistake of over-modesty, For he matured into a very harmless crea- ture. "Gilbert Ashleigh. I wa8 at' Oxford with him — a gen- tleman commoner of Christ Church. Good- looking man — very ; sapped — " "Sapped! what's that? Oh. studied. That he did all his life He married young — Anne Cbaloner; she and I were girls together; married the same year. They settled at Kirby Hall — nice place, but dull. I'ovntz and I spent a Christmas there. Ashleigh, when he tall ed. was charming, but he talked very lit lie. Anne, when she talked, was common-place, and she talked very much. Naturally, poor thing, she was so happy, i'oyntz and 1 did not spend another Christmas there. Friendship is long, but life is short. Gilbert Ash leigb's life was short indeed; he died in the fifth year of his marriage, leaving only one child, a girl. Since then, though I never spent another Christmas at Kirby Hall. ] have frequently spent a day there, doing my besl t<> cheer up Anne. She was no longer talkative, poor dear. Wrapt up in her child, who has now grown into a beautiful girl of eighteen — such eyes, her father's — the real dark blue — r. creature, but delicate; not, 1 h< umptive, but delicate; quiet — wants life. My .lane adores her. Jane has life enough for iv. "Is Miss Ashleigh the heiress to Kirby Hall/'" asked Mrs. Bruce, who had an unmarried son. "No. Kirby Hall passed to Ashleigh Sumner, the male heir, a cousin". And the luckiest of cousins ! Gilbert's sister, si woman (indeed, all show), had contrived to. marry her kinsman, Sir Walter Ashleigh Haughton, the head of the Asbleigb family, — just the man made To be the reflector of a showy woman ! He died years ago. leaving an only son, Sir James, who was killed last winter by a fall from his horse. And here, again, Asbleigb Sumner proved to be the male heir at law. During the mino of this fortunate youth, Mrs. Ashleigh had rented Kirby Hall of his guardian. He is now just coming- of age, and that is why she leaves. Lilian Ashleigh will have, however, a very good for- tune — is what we genteel paupers call an heiress. I> there any thing more you want to know?" Said thin Miss Brabazon, who took advantage of her thinness A STRANGE STORY. 21 to wedge herself into every one's affairs. "A most interesting account. But what brings Mrs. Ashleigh here Answered Mrs-. Colonel Poyntz, with the military frankness by which she kept her company in goo3 limnor, as well as ;> " Why do any of us come here 1 Can any one tell me There was a blank silence, which the hostess herself was the first to break. " None of us present can say why we came here. I can tell you why Mrs. Ashleigh came. Our neighbor, Mr. Vigors, is a distant connection of the late Gilbert Ashleigh, one of the execu- tors of his will, and the guardian to the heir-at-law. About days ago Mr. Vigors called on me. for the first tine since 1 fi my duty to express my opinion about the strange vagaries of our poor dear friend, Dr. Lloyd. And when he bad taken his chair. just where you now sir. Dr. Fen wick, he said, in a sepulchral voice, stretching out two fingers, so. as if I were one of the v do-y ou-call- 'ems who go to sleep when he bids them, ' marm, you know Mrs. Ashleigh ! Von correspond with her.' ' Yes. Mr. Vigors ; is there any crime in that I You look as if there v, ' No crime, marm,' said the man, quite seriously. ' Mrs. Ashleigh is a lady of amiable temper, and you are a woman of masculine understanding.' " Here there was a general titter. Mrs. Colonel Poyntz hushed it with a look of severe surprise. "What, is thereto laugh at ? All women would be men if I hey could. If my tinders masculine, so much the heller for me. 1 thanked Mr. Vigor his very handsome compliment, and he then went on to say, 'that though Mrs. Ashleigh would now have to leave Kirov Hall in a very few weeks, she seemed quite unable to make up her mind where to go: that ii had occurred to him that, as Miss Ashleigh was now of an age to see a little of the world, she ought not to remain buried in the country ; while, being of quiet mind, she re- coiled from the dissipation of London. Between the seclusion of the one and the turmoil of the other, the society of L was a happy medium, fie should he glad of my opinion. He had put off asking for it, because he owned his belief that I had behaved unkindly to his lamented friend. Dr. Lloyd; but he now found himself in rather an awkward position. His ward, young Ash- leigh Sumner, had prudently resolved on fixing his country resi- dence at Kirby Hall, rather than at Haughton Park, the much larger seat, which had so suddenly passed to his inheritance, and which he could not occupy without a vast establishment, that to a single man, so young, would be but a cumbersome and costly trouble. Mr. Vigors was pledged to his ward to obtain him pos session of Kirby Hall the precise day agreed upon, but Mrs. Ash- leigh did not seem disposed to stir — could not decide where to go. Mr. Vigors was loth to press hard on his old friend's wi- dow and child. It was a thousand pities Mrs. Ashleigh could not. 22 A STRANGE STORY. make up her mind ; she had had ample time for preparation. A word from me, at this moment, would be an effective kindness. Abbots' House was vacant, with a garden so extensive that the ladies would not miss the country. Another party was after it. but — ' 'Say no more,' I cried; 'no party hut my dear old friend, Anne Ashleigh, shall have Abbots' House. So thai ques- tion is settled.' I dismissed Mr. Vigors, sent for my carriage — that is, for Mr, Barker's yellow fly and his best horses — and drove that very day to Kirby Ball, which, though nol in this co inty, is only twenty-five miles distant. I slept there that night. By nine o'clock the bext morning I had secured Mrs. Ashleteh's consent, on the promise to save her a ! trouble, came back, sent for the landlord, settled the rent, lease. en | ; engaged Forbes' vans to remove the furniture from Kirby Hall, told Forbes to begin with the beds. Wljen her own bed came, which was last night, Anne Ashleigh came tool 1 have seen her this morning. She likes the place, so does Li ian. I asked them in you all here to-night ; but Mrs. AshleigTl was tired, last of the furniture was to arrive in-day ; and thoi Ashleigh is an undecided character, she is not inactive. But i is not only the planning where t«> put tables and chairs tl have tired her to-day : she lias had Mr. Vigors on her hand- all the afternoon, and he has been — here's her little n I are the words? no doubt, ' mosl : oppressive' — no, ' most kind and attentive' — different won', ied t'» -Mr- Vigors, they mean the same thil "And now next Monday — we must leave them in peace till then — you will all call on the Ashleif e Hill knows what is due to itself; it cannot delegate to Mr. Vigors, a respectable man indeed, but who does no; belong to its set, its own pi course of action toward- those who would shelter themsel ves on its bosom. The Hill cannot he kind and attentive, overpowering or oppressive, by proxy. To those new horn into its circle it cannot he an indifferent godmother; it has toward them all the feelings of a mother, or of a Btep-1 <■ may be. Where it says, « This can be no chi d of mine,' it is a step-mother indeed ; but, in all those whom 1 have presented to its arms, it has hitherto. I am proud to say. recof arable acquai ces, and to them the Hill has been a Mother. And now, my dear Mr. Sloman, go to your rubber ; Poyntz is impatie h he don't show it. Miss Brabazon, love, oblige us at the piai thing gay, but not very noisy — Mr. Leopold Smytbe will turn the leaves for you. Mrs. Bruce, your own favoi vingt-un, with four dew recruits. Dr. Fenwick, you are like me. don't cards, and don't care for music; sit here, and talk or not you please, while I knit." The other guests thus disposed of, some at the card-tables, round the piano, 1 placed myself at Mrs. Poyntz's side, on u seat A STRANGE STORY. 23 niched in the recess of a window, which an evening unusually warm for the month of May permitted to be left open. T next to one who had known Lilian ads a child, one from whom T had learned by whal sweet name to call the imago which my thoughts had already shrined. How much that I still long* She could tell me! But in what form of qui Id I lead to the subject, y el no! betray my absorbing interest in it ? T ing to speak, 1 felt as if stricken dumb ; stealing an unquiet gla toward the face hesidc me, and deeply impressed with that truth which the Hill had I ntly acknowledged, that Mr- Jonel Poyntz was a very superior woman — a very powerful creature. And there she sat knitting — rapidly, firmly : a woman some- what on the other side of forty, complexion a bronzed pah- hair a bronzed hrown, in strong ringlets, cropped short behind — handsome hair for a man: lips that, when (dosed, showed inflex- ible decision, when speaking, became supple and flexile with an humor and a vigilant fi es of a red hazel, quick hut steady ; observant, piercing, dauntless eyes; altogether a fine countenance — would have been a very tine countenance in a man; profile sharp, straight, clear-cut, with an expression, when in re- , like il'a! of a sphinx ; a frame robust, not corpulent, of mid- dle height, hut with an . e thai made her appear tall ; peculiarly white firm hands, indicative of vigorous health, not a vein visible on the surf Then 1 she sat knitting, knitting, and 1 by her side, gazing now on herself, now on her work, with a vague idea that the threads in th( ' my own web of love or of life were passing quick through tbose noiseless fingers. And. indeed, in every w< romance, the fondest, one of the Parcae is sure to be some matter- of-facl she, social Destiny, as little akin to romance itself — as was this worldly Queen of the Hill. CHAPTER VII. I HAVE given a sketch of the outward woman of Mrs. Colonel inner woman was a recondite mystery, dee]) as that of the sphinx, whose features her own resembled. But be- tween the outward and the inward woman there is ever a third woman — the conventional woman — such as the whole human being appears to the world — always mantled, sometimes masked. I am told that the tine people of London do not recognize the title of "Mrs. Colonel." If that be true, the fine people of Lon- don must be clearly in the wrong, for no people in the universe could be finer than the fine people of Abbey Hill ; and they con- sidered their sovereign had as good a right to the title of Mrs. Colonel as the Queen of England has to that of "our Gracious Lady." But Mrs. Poyntz herself never assumed the title of Mrs. Colonel; it never appeared on her cards any more than the title 24 A STRANGE STORY. of " Gracious Lady" appears on the cards which convey the invi- tation that a Lord Steward or Lord Chamberlain is commanded by Her Majesty to issue. To titles, indeed, Mrs. Poyntz evinced no superstitious reverence. Two peeresses related to her, not distantly, were in the habit of paying her a yearly visit, which lasted two or three days. The Hill considered these visits an honor to its eminence. Mr. Poyntz never seemed to esteem them an honor to herself; never boasted of them ; never soughl to show off her grand relations, nor put herself the least oul of the way t<; receive them. Her mode of life was free from ostentation. Se had the advantage of being a few hundreds a year richer than anj other inhabitant of the Hill: but she did nut devote her superior resources to the invidious exhibition of superior splendor Like a wise sovereign, the revenues of her exchequer were to the benefit of her subjeots, and not to the vanity of egotistical parade. As no one else on the Hill kepi a carriage, site declined to keep one. Her entertainments were simple, but numerous. Twice a week she received the Hill, and wa> genu- inely at home to it. She contrived to make her parties prover- bial!; ble. The refreshments were of the same kind as those which the poorest of her old maids of honor might proffer; but they were better of their kind — the besl of their kind — besl tea, the besl lemonade, the best cakes. Her rooms bad an air of comfort which was peculiar to them. They looked like rooms accustomed to receive, and receive in a friendly way; well warmed, well lighted, card-tables and pi- ano in the place that made cards and music inviting. On walls a few old family portraits, and three or foci' oilier pie tupes be valuable, and- certainly pleasing — two Wat- teau's, a Canaletti, a Weenix — plenty of easy chairs and settees covered with a cheerful chintz. In the arrangement of the fur- niture generally, an indescribable careless elegance. She herself was studiously plain in dress, more conspicuously t'n-c from jew- elry and trinkets than any married lady on the Hill. But 1 have beard from those who were authorities on such a subject, that she was never seen in a dress of the last year's fashion. She adi the mode as it came out, just enough to show that she was a it was out; hut with a sober reserve, as much as to say - 1 adopt the fashion as far as it suits myself; I do not permit the fashion to adopt me." In short, Mrs. Colonel Poyntz was some- times rough, sometimes coarse, always masculine: and yet, some- how or other, masculine in a womanly way ; but she was never vulgar, hecause never affected. It was impossible not to allow that she was a Ihorough gentlewoman, and she could do things thai lower other gentlewomen without any Iqss of -dignity. Thus she was an admirable mimic, certainly in itself the least lady-like condescension of humor. But when she mimicked, it was with so tranquil a gravity, or so royal a good-humor, that one could A STRANGE STORY. 25 oiily say, "What talents for society dear Mrs. Colonel has!" As she was a gentlewoman emphatically, so the other colonel, the he-colonel) was emphatically a gentleman j rather shy, but not cold: bating trouble of every kind, pleased to seem a cipher in his own house. If the sole study of Mrs. Colonel had been to make her husband comfortable, she could not have succeeded bet- ter than by Bringing friends about him. ami then taking them off his hands. Colonel Poyntz, the he-oolonel, had seen in his youth actual service; hut had retired from his profession many years ago, shortly after his marriage. Be was a younger brother of one of the principal squires in the county; inherited the hoe- lived in, with some other valuable property in and about L . from an uncle ; was considered a good landlord ; and popular in Low Town, though he never interfered in its affairs. He was punctiliously neat in his dress; a, thin, youthful figure, crowned with a thick youthful wig. He never seemed to read anything hut the newspapers and the Meteorological Journal; was sup- posed to he the most weatherwise man in all L . lie had an- other intellectual predilection — whist. But in that he had less reputation for wisdom. Perhaps it requires a rarer combination of mental faculties to win an odd trick than to divine a fall in the glass. I'm- the rest, the he-colonel, many years older than his wife, despite the thin youthful figure, was an admirable aid-de- camp to the genera] in command, Mrs. Colonel ; and she could not have found one more obedient, more devoted, or more proud of a distinguished chief. In giving to Mrs. Colonel Poyntz the appellation of Queen of the Hill, let there he no mistake. She was not a constitutional sovereign ; her monarchy was absolute. All her proclamations had the force of laws. Such ascendency could not have been attained without consid- erable talents for acquiring and keeping it. Amidst all her off- hand, brisk, imperious frankness, she had the ineffable discrimin- ation of tact. Whether civil or rude, she was never civil or rude but what she carried public opinion along with her. Her knowl- edge of general society must have heen limited, as must he that of all female sovereigns. But she seemed gifted with an intuitive knowledge of human nature which she applied to her special am- bition of ruling it. I have not a doubt that if she had been sud- denly transferred, a perfect 9tranger, to the world of London, she would have soon forced her way to its selectest circles, and, when once there, held her own against a duchess. I have said that she was not affected ; this might he one cause of her sway over a set in which nearly every other female was try- ing rather to seem, than to lie, a somebody. Put if Mrs. Colonel Poyntz was not artificial, she was artful, or perhaps 1 might more justly say — artistic. In all she said and did there were conduct, system, plan. She could be a most ser- 26 A STRANGE STORY. vioeable friend, a most damaging' enemy ; yet I believe she seldom indulged in strong likings or si rung hatreds. All was policy — a policy akin to that of a grand parly chief, determined to raise up those whom, for any reason of state it was prudent to favor, and to put down those whom, for any reason of state,- it was expedient to humble or to crush. Ever since the controversy with Dr. Lloyd, this lady had hon- ored me with her henignest countenance. And nothing could he more adroit than the manner in which, while imposing me mi others as an oracular authority, she sought to subject to her will the ora- cle itself. She was in the habit of addressing me in a sort of motherly way as if she had the deepest interest in my welfare, happiness and reputation. Ami thus, in every compliment, in every seeming mark of respect, she maintained the superior dignity of one who takes from responsible station the duty to encourage rising merit; so that, somehow or other, despite all that pride which made me believe that I needed no helping hand to advance or to clear my way through the world, I could nol shake oil' from my mind the impression that- I was faysteriously patronized by Mrs. Colonel Poyntz. We might have sat together five minutes, side by side — in si- lence as complete as ifi Trophorrius — when, wit! looking up from her work, Mrs. Poyntz said abruptly, "I am thinking about you, Dr. . And you — are think- ing about some other woman. Ungrateful i " Unjust- accusation ! My v< i should prove how in- tently my thoughts were fixed on yon, and on the weird web which springs under your hand in meshes that bewilder the gaze and snare the attention. Mrs. Poyntz looked i p at me for a. — one rapid gl. • if the bright red hazel eye — and said, "Was I really in your thoughts I Answer truly." " Truly, I answer, you were." " That is strange ! Who cai " AVho can it be ! What do you mean V "If you were thinking of me, it was in connection with • other person — some other person of my own sex. It is certainly not poor dear .Miss Brabazon. Wl Again the red eye shot over me, and I fell my cheek redden be- neath it. " Hush ! " she said, lowering her voice ; " you are in love ! " " In love ! — 1 ! Permit me to ask you why you think so % " " The signs are unmistakable ; you are altered in your man- ner, even in the ex; ression of your face, since I last saw you, your manner is generally quiet and observant, it .is now restless and distracted ; your expression of "ally proud and serene, it is now humbled arid troubled. Yoa have something on A STRANGE STdRY. your mind ! It is not anxiety for your reputation, that, is estab- lished ; nor for your fortune, that is made; it is not anxiety for a patient, or you would scarcely be here. But anxiety it is, an anx- iety that is remote from your profession, that tone! cart and is new to it!" I was startled, almost awed. But I tried to cove- my confu- sion With a forced laugh. " Profound observer ! Subtle analyst! Yon me that I must lie in love, though I did no1 suspi fore. But when I strive to conjecture the object, I am as much plefled as yourself; and with you, I ask, v, ' be V " Whoever il he," said Mrs. Poyntz, who had pat spoke, from her knitting, and now resumed ii very slowly very carefully, as if her mind an^J her knitting worked in ui . together. " Whoever it be, love in you would be serious ; and, with or without love, marriage is ■ thing o us all, It is not even pretty girl thai would suit Alh las! is there any pretty girl whom Allefi Pen wick would suit ?" "Tut ! Von. should be above the fretful vanity that lays traps for a compliment. Yes; the time te in your life and career when you would do well to marry. : that," she added, With a smile as if h j 1 a slight in earuest. The knitting here went on more decidedly, more quickly. u I do not yet see the person. No! 'Tis a pity Allen Fenwick, (whenever Mrs. Poyntz called me by my Christian name, she always assumed her majestic motherly manner), " a pity that, with your birth, energies, perseverence, talents, and, let me add, your advantages of manner and person — a pity that you did not choose a career that might achieve higher fortunes and louder fame than the most brilliant :an give to a provincial physi- cian. But in that very choice you interest me. My choice has been much the same. A small circle, but the first in it. Yet. had I been a man, or had my dear colonel been a man whom it was in the power of woman's art to raise one step higher in that meta- phorical ladder which is not the laddt ngels, why, then — what then ? No matter ! I am contented. or my ambition to .lane Do you not think her handsom "There can be no doubt of that," said I, carelessly and natu- rally. " I have settled Jane's lot in my own mind," resumed Mrs. Poyntz, striking firm into another row of the knitting. She will marry a country gentleman of lai He will go o Par- liament. She will study his advancement, as I study Poyntz's comfort. If he be clerer, she will help to make him a minister ; if he* be not clever, his wealth will make her a personage, and lift him into a personage's husband. And, now that you see I have 28 A STRANGE STORY. no matrimonial designs on you, Allen Fen wick, think if it be worth while to confide in me. Possibly I may be useful—" " I know not bow to thank you. But, as yet I have nothing to confide." While thus saying, I turned my eyes toward the open window, beside which I sat. It was a beautiful, soft night. The May moon in all her splendor. The town stretched, far ind wide be- low, with all its numberless lights ; below — but somewhat distant — an intervening space was covered, here, by the broad quadrangle (in the midst of which stood, massive and lonely, the grand old church ); and, there, by the gardens and scattered cottages or man- sions that clothed the sides of the hill. " Is not that house," I said, after a short pause, " yonder, with the three gables, the one in which — which poor Dr. Lloyd lived — Abbots' House ?" I spoke abruptly, as if to intimate my desire to change the sub- ject of conversation. " Yes. But what a lovely night ! How is it that the moon blends into harmony things of which the sun only marks the con- trast? That stately old church tower, gray with its thousand years — those vulgar tile roofs and chimney-pots, raw in the fresh- ness of yesterday ; now, under the moonlight, all melt into one indivisible charm !" As my hostess thus spoke she had left her seat, taking her work with her, and passed from the window into the balcony. It was not often that Mrs. Poyntz condescended to admit what is called "sentiment" into the range of her sharp, practical, worldly talk, but she did so at times; always when she did, giving me the notion of an intellect much too comprehensive not to allow that sen- timent has a place in this life, but keeping it in its proper place by that mixture of affability and indifference with which sonic high- born beauty allows the genius but checks the presumption of a charming and penniless poet, For a few minutes her eyes roved over the scene in evident enjoymenl ; then, as they slowly settled upon the three gables of Abbots' House, her face regained that something of hardness which belonged to its decided character ; her ringers again mechanically resumed their knitting, and she said, in her clear, unsoftened, metallic chime of voice, " Can you guess why I took so much trouble to oblige Mr. Vigors and locate Mrs. Ashleigh yonder V "You favored us with a full explanation of your reasons." " Some of my reasons ; not the main one. People, who under- take the task of governing others, as I do, be their rule a kingdom or a hamlet, must adopt a principle of government and adhere to it. The principle that suits best with the Hill is respect for the Proprieties. We have not much money pmtre rums, we have no great rank. Our policy is, then, to set up the Proprieties as an A STRANGE STORY. 29 influence which money must court and rank is afraid of. I had learned just before Mr Vigors called on me thai Lady Sarah Bel- lasis entertained the idea of hiring Abbots' House. London lias set its face against her ; a provincial town would be more chari- table. An earl's daughter, with a good income and an awfully had name, of the best manners and of the worst morals, would have made sad havoc among the Proprieties. How many of our prim- mest old maids would have deserted Tea and Mrs. Poyntz for Champagne and her ladyship ! The Hill was never in so fmmi- nent a danger. Rather than Lady Sarah Bellasis should have had that house, 1 would have taken it myself and stocked it with owls." " Mrs. Ashleigh turned up just in I he critical moment. Lady Sarah was foiled,) he Proprieties safe, and so thai»question is set tied." '• And it will be pleasant to have your early friend so near you " Mrs. Poyntz lifted her eves full upon me. "Do you know Mrs. Ashleig '"Not the least." " She has many virtues and few ideas. She is commonplace wealc, as I am commonplace strong. But commonplace weak can be very lovable. Her husband, a man of genius and learning, gave her his whole heart — a heart worth having; but he was not ambitious, and he despised the world." " I think you said your daughter was very much attached to Miss Ashleigh. Does her character resemble her mother's .'" I was afraid while I spoke that I should again meet Mrs.Poyntz's searching gaze, but she did not this time look up from her work. " No ; Lilian is anything but commonplace." "You describe her as having delicate health; you implied a hppe that she was not consumptive. 1 trust there is no serious reason for apprehending a constitutional tendency which at her age would require the most careful watching." "I trust not. If she were to die — Dr. Fenwick, what is the matter I" So terrible had been the picture which this woman's words had brought before me, thai 1 started as if my own life had received a shock. "I beg pardon," 1 said, faltering, pressing ray hand to my heart ; " a sudden spasm here — it is over now. You were saying that— that— " " I was about to say — " and here Mrs. poyntz laid her hand lightly on mine. " I was about- to say that if Lilian Ashleigh were to die, I should mourn for her less than I might for one who valued the things of the earth more. But I believe there is no cause for the alarm my words so inconsiderately excited in you Her mother is watchful and devoted ; and if the least thing ailed Lilian, slip would call in medical advice. Mr. Vigors would, I know, recommend Dr. Jones." 30 A STRANGE STORY. Closing our conference with those stinging words, Mrs. P s " ! did \\<<\ pear to notice the hand held cut to me, and passed by with aqu ened step. " But, Dr. Fenwick, stop!" " No, ma'am, no! Miss Ashleigh would have recovered as soon Without me. Whenever my aid is really wanted, then — hut Heaven grant that time may never come! We will talk aboul her to- morrow." I was gi . irden ground, odorous with blossoms ; now in the lane, inclosed by the narrow walls; now in the des streets, over which the moon shone full as in that winter night when 1 hurried from the chamber of death. Hut the streets were not ghastly now, and the moon was no longer Hecate, that dreary less of awe and spectres, hut the sweet, simple Lady of the Stars, on whose gentle face lovers have gazed ever since (if that uoraers be true) she was parted from earth* to rule the tides ofits deeps from afar, even as lore from love divided rules the heart that yearns toward it with mysterious law! CHAPTER XI. With what increased benignity I listened to the patients who visited me the next morning ! The whole human race seemed to me worthier of love, and 1 longed to diffuse among all some rays of the glorious hope thai had dawned upon my heart. My first call, when I went forlh. was on the poor young woman from whom I had been returning the day before, when an impulse, which seemed like a fate, had lured me into the grounds where I had first seen' Lilian. I fell grateful to this poor patient; without her, Lilian herself might yet be unknown to me. The girl's brother, a young man employed in the police, and 38 A STRANGE STORY. whose pay supported a widowed mother and the suffering sister. received me at the threshold of the cottage. " Oh, Sir ! she is so much better to-day ; almost free from pain. Will she live now 1 can she live ? " " If my treatment has really done the good you say ; if she be really better under it, I think her recovery may be pronounced. But I must first see her." The girl was indeed wonderfully better. I felt that my skill was achieving a signal triumph, but that day even my intellectual pride was forgotten in the luxurious unfolding of that sense of heart which bad so newly waked into blossom. As I recrossed the threshold I smiled on the brother who was still lingering there. "Your sister is saved, Waby. She needs now chiefly wine and good though light nourishment ; these you will find at my bouse ; call there for them every day." " (iod bless you. Sir! If ever I can serve you — '* His tongue faltered — he could say no more. Serve me — Allen Fenwick — that poor policeman ! Me, whom a king could not serve ! What did 1 ask from earth but fame aird Lilian's heart.' Thrones and bread man win from the aid of others. lame- and woman's heart lie can only gain through himself. So I strode gaily up the hill, through the iron gates into the fairy ground, and stood before Lilian's home. The man-servant, on opening the door, seemed somewhat con- fused, and said, hastily, before I spoke, " Not at home, Sir ; a note for you." I turned the note mechanically in my hand ; I felt stunned. " Not? at home ! Miss Ashleigh cannot he out. How is sh< " Better, Sir, thank you." I still could not open the note ; my eyes turned wistfully to- wards the windows of the house, and there — at the drawing-room window — I encountered the scowl of Air. Vigors. I colored with resentment, divined that I was dismissed, and walked away with a proud crest and a firm stem When 1 was out of the gates, in the blind lane, I opened the note. It began formally, " Mrs. Ashleigh presents her compli- ments,'' and went on to thank me, civil v enough, for my attendance the night before, would not give me the trouble to repeat my visit, and inclosed a fee double the amount of the fee prescribed by custom. I flung the money, as an asp that had stung me, over the high wall, and tore the note into shreds. Having thus idly vented my rage, a dull gnawing sorrow came heavily down upon all other enntions, stifling and replacing them. At the mouth of the lane I halted. I shrank from the thought of the crowded streets be- yond. I shrank yet more from the routine of duties which stretche d before me in the desert into which daily life was so sud- A STRANUE STORY. 39 denly smitten. T sat down by the roadside, shading ray dejected face with a nerveless hand. I looked up fee the sound of steps reached my ear, and saw Dr. Jones coming briskly along the lane, evidently from Abbots' House. He must have been there at the very time I had called. 1 was not only dismissed but supplanted. I ruse before he reached the spot on which 1 had seated myself, and went my way into the town, went through my allotted round of professional visits, hut my attentions were nol SO tenderly devoted, my skill so genially quickened by the glow of benevolence, as my poorer patients had found them in the morning. I have jaid how a physician should enter the sick room. " A Calm Intelligence !" But if you strike a blow on "t, the intellect suffers. Little worth, I suspect, was my "calm intelli- gence" that day. Biohat, in his famous book upon Life and Death, divides life into two classes — animal and organic. Man's intellect, with the brain for its centre,. belongs to life animal ; his passions to life organic, centered in the heart, in the viscera. Alas! if the noblest passions, through which alone we lift ourselves into the moral realm of the sublime and beautiful, really have their centre in the life which the very vegetable, lhat lives organically. shares with us ! And. alas ! if it be that life which we share with the vegetable, that can cloud, obstruct, suspend, annul that life centered in the brain, which we share with every being howsoever angelic, in every star howsoever remote, on whom the Creator be- stows the faculty of thought ! CHAPTER XII. But suddenly I remembered Mrs. Poyntz. I ought to call on her. So 1 closed my round of visits at her door. But the day was then far advanced, and the servant politely informed me that Mrs. Poyntz was at- dinner. I could only leave my card, with a message that 1 would pay my respects to her the next day. That evening 1 received from her this note : " DEAR Dr. FENWick — I regret much that I cannot have the pleasure of Be sing y hi bo-rnorrow. Poyntz and I arc going to visit his brother, at the other end of the county, and \vc start early. W e shall be away BOine days. Sorry t<> hear from Mrs. Ashloigb that she has been persuaded by Mr. Vigors to consult JDr. Jones about Lilian. Vigors and Jones both frighten the poojj mother, arid insist upon consumptive tendencies. Unluckily, you seem to have said there was little the matter. Some (lot-tors gain their practice, as gome preachers fill their churches, by adroit use of the appeals to terror. You do not want patients; Dr. Jones does. And, alter all, better perhaps as it is v.uns, etc. M. Poyntz." To my more selfish grief aaxiety for Lilian was uow added. I had seen many more patients die from being mistreated for con- 40 A STRANGE STORY. sumption than from consumption itself. And Dr. Jones was a mercenary, cunning, needy man, with much crafty knowledge of human foibles, but very little skill in the treatment of human maladies. My fears were soon confirmed. A few days after I heard from Miss Brabazon that Miss Ashleigh was seriously ill — kept her room. Mrs. Ashleigh made this excuse for not- immedi- ately returning the visits which the Hill had showered upon her. Miss Brabazon had seen Dr. Jones, who had shaken his head ; said it was a serious case, but that time and care (his time and his care!) might effect wonders. How stealthily at the dead of the night I would climb the Hill, and look toward the windows of the old sombre house — one win- dow, in which a light burned dim and mournful, the light of a sick- room — of hers? At length Mrs Poyntz came back, and I entered her house, having- fully resolved beforehand on the line of policy to he adopted toward the' potentate whom 1 hoped to secure as an ally. It was clear that neither disguise nor half-confidence would baffle the pen- etration of so keen an intellect, nor propitiate the good will of so imperious and resolute a temper. Perfect frankness here was the wisest prudence ; and, after all, it was most agreeable to my own nature, and most worthy of my own honor. Luckily, I found Mrs. Poyntz alone, and, taking in both mine hand she somewhat coldly extended tome, 1 said, with the earnest- ness of suppressed emotion : "You observed, when I lasl saw you. that I had not yet asked you to be.my friend. I ask it now. Listen to me with all the in- dulgence you can vouchsafe, and let me at least profit by your counsel if you refuse to give me your aid." Rapidly, briefly, I went on to say' how I had first seen Lilian, and how sudden, how strange to myself had been the impression which that first sight of her had produced. "You remarked the change that had come over me," said I; " you divined the cause before I divined it myself; divined it as 1 sat there beside you, thinking that through you I might see, in the freedom of social intercourse, the face thai was then daunting me. You know what has since passed. Miss Ashleigh is ill; her case is, I am convinced, wholly misunderstood. All other feelings are merged in one sense of anxiety — of alarm. But it has become due to all, due to me, to incur the risk of your ridicule even more than of your reproof, by stating to you thus candidly, plainly, bluntly, the sentiment which renders alarm so poignant, and which, if scarcely admissable to the romance of some wild dreamy boy, may seem an unpardonable folly in a man of my years and my sober calling ; due to me, to you, to Mrs. Ashleigh ; because still the dear- est, thing in life to me is honor. And if you, who know Mrs. Ash- leigh so intimately, who must be more or less aware of her plans or wishes for her daughter's future ; if you believe that those plans A STRANGE STORY. 41 or wishes lead to h lot far more ambitious than an alliance with me could offer to Miss Ashleigh, then aid Mr. Vigors in excluding me from the ho I nae in suppressing imptuous, vis- ionary passion. I cannot enter that house without Idve and at my heart. And the threshold of that house I must not cross, if such love and such hope would be a sin and a treachery in eyes of its owner. I might restore Miss Ashleigh to health; her gratitude mighl — 1 cannot continue. This danger must nol be to me nor to her, if her mother has views far ab i a son-in- law. And 1 am the more hound to consider all this while use 1 heard you state that. Miss Ashieigfb had a for- — was what would he here termed an heiress. And the full conscious!. ess that whatever fame one in my profession may live to acquire dc.es noi open those vistas of social power and grandeur • opened by professions to my ey< selves — thai lull consciousness, i say. was forced upon me by cer- words of your own. For the rest, you Know i it. is sufficiently recognized as that amidst well-horn gentry to rendered me no mesalliance to families the most proud of their ancestry, if I had kept my hereditary estate and avoided the ca- reer that makes me useful to man. lint I acknowledge th i entering- a profession such as mine — entering any profession «•: thai of arms or the Senate — all leave their pedigree at its door, an erased or dead letter. All must come as equals, high-bom or low- horn, into that arena in which men ask aid from a man as he makes i If; to them his dead forefathers are idle dust. Therefore, to the advantage of birth i cease to have a claim. I am but a pro- vincial physician, whose station would be the same had he In cobbler's son. But gold- retains its grand privilege in all ranks. He who has gold is removed from the suspicion thai attaches to the grecd>' fortune-hunter. My private fortune, swelled by my saw is sufficient to secure to any one 1 married a larger settlement than many a wealthy squire can make. I need le with a wife; if she have one, it would he settled on herself. Pardon these vul- gar details. Now, have I made myself r ; I" " Fully," answered the Queen of the Hill, who had listened to me quietly, watchfully, and without one interruption. " Fully. And you have done well to confide in me with so gen- erous an unreserve. Bui before 1 say further, let me ask, what would he your advice for Lilian, supposing that you ought i: attend her I You have no trust in Dr. Jones ; neither have I. And Ann. jb's note received to-day, begging me to call, justifies your alarm. Still you think there is no tendency to con- sumption " M that I am Certain, so' 1 I glimpse of a to me, however, seems a simple ncommon one, wiH per- mit, i ut in the a ternative you put — that my own skill, whatever its worth, is forbidden — my earnest, advice is that Mrs. Ashleigh 42 A STRANGE STORY. should take her daughter at once to London, and consult there those great authorities to whom I cannot compare my own opinion or experience ; and by their counsel abide." Mrs. Poyntz shaded her eyes with her hand for a few moments, and seemed in deliberation with herself. Then she said, with her peculiar smile, half grave, half ironical : " In matters more ordinary you would have won me to your side long ago. That Mr. Vigors should have presumed to cancel my recommendation to a settler on the Hill, w T as an act of rebellion, and involved the honor of my prerogative. But I suppressed my 1 indignation at an affront so unusual, partly out of pique against yourself, but much more, I think, out of regard for you." " I understand. You detected the secret of my heart; you knew that Mrs. Ashleigh would not wish to see her daughter the wife of a provincial physician." "Am I sure, or are you sure, that the daughter herself would accept that fate ; or if she accepted it, would not repent I " " Do not think me the vainest of men when I say this — that I cannot believe I should be so enthralled by a feeling at war with my reason, unfavored by any thing 1 can detect in my habits of mind, or even by the dreams of a youth which exalted science and excluded love, unless 1 was intimately convinced that Miss Ash* leigh's heart was free — that 1 could win, and that I could keep it ! Ask me why I am convinced of this, and I can tell you no more why I think that she could love me, than I can tell you why 1 love her ! " " I am of the world, worldly. But I am woman, womanly — though I may not care to be thought it. And therefore, though what you say is — regarded in a world!)' point of view, sheer non- sense — regarded in a womanly point of view it is logically sound. But still you cannot know Lilian as I do. Your nature and hers are in strong contrast. I do not think she is a safe wife for you. The purest, the most innocent creature imaginable, certainly that, but always in the seventh heaven. And you in the seventh heaves just at this moment, but with an irresistible gravitation to the solid earth, which will have its way again when the honeymoon is over. I do not believe you two would harmonize by intercourse. 1 do not believe Lilian would sympathize with you, and I am sure you could not sympathize with her throughout the long dull course of this work-day life. And therefore, for your sake as well as hers, I was not displeased to find that Dr. Jones had replaced you ; and now, in return for your frankness, I say, frankly — do not go again tothat house. Conquer this sentiment, fancy, passion, whatever it be. And I will advise Mrs. Ashleigh to take Lilian to town. Shall it be so settled \" I could not speak. I buried my face in my hands — misery, misery, desolation b I know not how long I remained thus silent, perhaps many minutes. At length I felt a cold, firm, but not. un- A STRANGE STORY. -H gentle hand placed upon mine ; and a clear, full, hut not discour- aging voice said to me : •' Leave me to think well over this conversation, and to ponder well the value of all you have shown that you so deeply Peel. The interests of life do not till both scales of the balance. The heart which does not always go in the same scale with the interests, still has its weight in the scale opposed to them. I have heard a few wise men say, as many a silly woman says. ' Better in: unhappy will) one we love, than he happy with one we love not." 1 >c say that, too?" "With ever\' thought of my brain, every he.it of my pull say it." "After that answer, all my questionings cease. You shall hear from me fco-morrow. By thai time I shall have seen Anne and Lilian. 1 shall have weighed both scales of the balanoe, and the heart here. Allen I'Yuwiek. seems very heavy. Go, now. 1 hear tie stairs. Poyntz bringing up some friendly, gossiper ; ere are spies." I passed my hand over my eyes, tearless, but how tears would have relieved the anguish that burdened them! and. without a word, went down the stairs, meeting at the landing-place Colonel Poyntz and the old roan whose pain my prescription had cured. The old man was whistling a merry tunc, perhaps first learned on the play-ground, lie broke from it to thank, almost to embrace hie. as [ slid hy.him. I seized Ids jocund blessing as a good omen, and carried it with me as 1 passed into the broad sunlight. .Soli- tan — solitary. Should i he so evermore 1 CHAPTER XIII. The next day I bad just dismissed the last of my visiting patients, and was aboul to enter my Carriage and commence my round, when 1 received a. twisted note containing hut these w'ords : "Call iii) me to-day, .-;s soon as you can. M. P6yntz." A few minutes afterward 1 was in Mrs. l'ovntz's drawing-room. " Well, Allen Fenwick," said she, " I do not serve friends hy halves. No thanks! I hut adhere to a principle I have laid down for myself. I spent last evening with the Ashleigh's. Lilian is certainly much altered — very weak, 1 fear very ill, and I believe very unskilfully treated hy Dr. Jones. 1 felt that: il was my duly to insist on a change of physician, hut there was something else to consider before deciding who that physician should he. i was bound, as your confidant, to consult your own scruples of honor. 44 A STRANGE STORY. Of course I could not say point-blank to Mrs. Ashleigh, Dr. Fen- wick admires your daughter, would you object to him as a son-in- law } . Of course I could not touch at all on the secret with which you intrusted me; but I have not the less arrived at a conclusion, in agreement with my previous belief, that not being a woman of the world, Anne Ashleigh has none of the ambition which women of the world would conceive for a daughter who has a good fortune and considerable beauty ; that her predominant anxiety is for her child's happiness, and her predominant fear is that her child will die. She would never oppose any attachment which Lilian might form, and if that attachment were for one who had preserved her daughter's life, I believe her own heart would gratefully go with her daughter's. So far, then, as honor is concerned, all scruples vanish." I sprang from my se it with joy. Mrs. Poyntz dryly continued: "You value, yourself on your common sense, and to that I address a few won unsel which may not lie welcome to your romance. I said that 1 did not think you and Lilian would suit each other in the long-run ; reflection confirms me in thai position. l)o not look at me so incredulously and so sadly. Li and take heed. Ask yourself what, as a man whose days arc de- voted to a laborious profession, whose ambition is entwined with its success, whose mind must be absorbed in its pursuits — ask yourself what kind of wife you would have sought to win, had not this sudden fancy for a eharaiii rushed over your b reason, and obliterated all previous plans and resolutions. Surely some one with whom your heart would have been quite at rest ; by whom your thoughts would have been undistracted from the channels into which your calling shop.: their flow ; in rene companion in the quiet holiday of a trustful h Is it not so'?" " V ret my own thoughts when they have turned toward marri . Lilian Ashleigh that should mar the picture ymt have drawn ! " " What is there in Lilian Ashleigh which in the least accords with the picture ? In the first place, the wife of a young physician should not be his perpetual patient. The more he loves her, and the more worthy she may lie of love, the more her case will haunt him wherever lie goes. When he returns home, it is not to a holi- : the patient he most cares for, the anxiety that most g] him, awaits them there." Heavens ! why should Lilian Ashleigh be a perpe- tual patient] The sanitary resources of youth are incalculable. And—" , "Let me stop you; I cannot argue against a physician in love ! I will give up that point in dispute, remaining convinced that there is a something in Lilian's constitution which will perplex, torment, and baffle you. It was so with her father, whom she resembles-in A 8TRANUE STORY. 4-5 face and in (character, lie showed no symptoms of any grave malady. Ills outward form was like Lilian's, a model of symmetry, except in this, thai, like he'rsj it was too exquisitely delicate; but, when seemingly in the midst of perfect health, at any slight jar on e*ves he would become alarmingly ill. 1 was sure thi would die young, and he did so." " Ay, but Mra. Ashleigh said that his death was from brain- On by over-study. Rarely, indeed, do women so tie the brain. No female patient, in the range of my pra eve.- died i f purely mental exertion." " Of purely mental exertion, no; but of heart emotion many female patients, perhaps] < »h. you own that; I know nothing about nerves. But I suppose that, whether they act on tfae brain or the heart, the result to life is much the same if the nerves 1 strung for lit car and tear. And this is wl mean ay you and Lilian will not suit . I she is a child: h I .1 her affection, there- fore, untried. £ou migl • that you had won I she might believe that she gave ii to both be deceived. If fairies nowadays condescended to exchange their offspring mortals, and if the popular tradition d changeling as an ugly, peevish cr s parents, i be half inclined to suspect that Lilian one of the elfin people. She ne\ sr > earth ; and I do not think she will ever be contented With a prosaic earthly lot. iu why 1 do not think I you. I mast leave it to yourself to o ■ how tar you would suit I say this iu due season, while you may upon im- ■ ; while you ma}' yet watch, ami weigh, and from tliis moment on that subjeel I say no more. 1 lend a .lever thfow it away." She came here to a dead pause, and befan putting on her hor- net ami scarf whic,h lay on the table beside, her. 1 was a little chilled by her words, and yet i the blunt, slm d look and manner which aided the effect of their delivery. But the me!;. a the sudden glow of my heart when sir.- again ''Of course you guess, from these preliminary cautious, that you are going into danger ? Mrs. Ashleigh wishes to consult you about ie to take you to her hoi " ( )li, my friend, my dear friend, how can I ever repays her hand, the white, firm hand, and lifted it to ray li somewhat hastily away, and laying- it gently on my Ider, said, in a soft voice, " Poor Allen, how little the world .s either of us I Bwt how little," perhaps, do we know our- . your carriage is here .' That is right ; we must put down Dr. Jones publicly and in all our st; lu the carriage .Mrs. Pointz told me the purport of that convcr- 46 A STRANGE STORY. sation with Mrs. Ashleigh to which I owed my reintroduction to Abbots'- House. It seems that Mr. Vigors' had called early the morning after ray first visit ; had evinced much discomposure on, hearing that I had been summoned ; dwelt much on my injurious treatment of Dr Lloyd, whom, as distantly related to himself, and he (Mr. Vigors,) being distantly connected to the late Gilbert Ashleigh, he endeavored to fasten upon his listener as one of her husband's family, whose quarrel she was bound in honor to take up. He ' spoke of me as an infidel "tainted with French doctrines," and as a practitioner rash and presumptuous, proving his own freedom presumption and rashness by daily deciding that my opinion must be wrong. Previous to Mrs. Ashleigii's migration to L , Mr. Vigors had interested her in the pretended phenomena of mes- merism. He had consulted a clairvoyant much esteemed by poor Dr. Lloyd, as to Lilian's health, and the clairvoyant!;; red her to be constitutionally predisposed to consumption. Mr. \ i persuaded Mrs. Ashleigh to come at once with him and see this clairvoyant herself, armed with a lock of Lilian's hair and a glove she had worn, as the media of mesmerieal rapport. The clairvoyant, one of those I had publicly denounced as an impostei", naturally enough denounced me in return. On b< asked solemnly by -Air. Vigors "to look at Dr. Fenwiefa and see if his influence would be beneficial to the subject," the sibyl had he- come violently agitated, said that, " when she Looked at us together, we were enveloped in a black cloud ; thai this portended affliction and sinister consequences; that our rapport was antagoni Mr. Vigors then told her to dismiss my image ami conjure up that of Dr. Jones. Therewith the somnambule became more tranquil, and said "Dr. Jones world do well if he would he guided by higher lights than his own skill, and consult herself daily as to the proper remedies. The besl remedy of all would he mesmerism. But since Dr. Lloyd's death she did not know of a mesmerist, suffi- ciently gifted, in affinity with the patient.'' In line, she impressed and awed Mrs. Ashleigh, who returned in haste, summoned Dr. Junes, and dismissed myself. "I could not have conceived Mrs. Ashleigh to he so till. wanting in common sense," said 1. " She talked rationally em when 1 saw her." '•She has common sense in general, and plenty of tl most common," answered Mrs. Pointz. " Put she is easily and easily frightened wherever her affections are concerned, and therefore just as easily as site had been persuaded by Mr. Yi_ and terrified by the somnambule, I persuaded her against the one, aud terrified her against the other. I had positive experience on my side, since it was clear that Lilian had been getting rapidly worse under Dr. Jones's care. The main objections I had to en- counter in inducing her to consult you again were, first, in Mrs. Ashleigh's reluctance to disoblige Mr. Vigors, as a friend aud cou- A STRANGE STORY. 47 nectiou of Lilian's father ; and, secondly, a sentiment of shame in reinviting your opinion after having treated you with so little re- spect. Both these difficulties J took upon myself, i bring you to her house, and, on leaving you, I shall go on bo Mr. Vigors, tell hhu what is clone is my doing, and not to be undone by him; so that matter is settled, indeed, it' you were out of the question, I should not sutler Mr. Vigors to reintroduce all these mummeries of clairvoyance and mesmerism into the precincts of the Hill. I did no! demolish a man 1 really liked in Dr. Lloyd, to set up a Dr. Jones, whom 1 despise, in his stead. Clairvoyance on Abbey Hill, indeed! 1 saw enough of ii before." "True; your strong intellect detected at once the absurdity of the whole pretence — the falsity of mesmerism — the impossibility of clairvoyance." " No, my strong intellect did nothing of the kind. I do not know whether mesmerism be false or clairvoyance impossible; and I don't wish to know. All 1 do know is, thai 1 saw the Hill in great danger; young ladies allowing themselves to be put to sleep by gentlemen, ami pretending they had no will of their own against such fascination ! Improper and shocking ! And Miss Brab beginning to prophesy, and ' ioning her maid (whom Dr. Lloyd declared to be highly gifted) as to all fcs of her friends. When 1 saw this, 1 said, 'The liiil is demoralized; the Hill is '.waking itself ridiculous ; the Hill must be saved ! ' I remonstrated with Dr. Lloyd as a friend; he re- mained pbdurate. 1 annihilated him as an enemy, not to me, but to the State. 1 slew m. rer for the good of Lome. Now you know why I took your part ; nol because 1 h<. inion one way or the other as to the truth or falsehood of what Dr. Lloyd asserted; but: 1 have a strong opinion that whether the; r false, his notions were those which are not to he allowed 014 the Hill. Arid so, Allen Lenwick, the matter was settled." .Perhaps at another time 1 might: have felt some little humiliation to learn that 1 had been honored with the influence of this great potentate, not as a champion of truth, but as an instrument of policy; and I might have owned to some twinge of conscience in having assisted to sacrifice a seeker after science — misled, no doubt, but [metering his independent belief to his woi Lily interest — and sacrifice him to those deities with whom science is ever at war — the Prejudices of a Clique sanctified into the Propsieties of the world. But at that moment the words 1 heard made no perceptible impres- sion on my mind. The gables of Abbots' House were visible above tiie evergreens and lilacs; another moment, and the carriage" stopped at the door. 48 A STRAfJtfB STO*Y. CHAPTER XIV. Lshlbigh received us in the dining-room. Her manner to me, at first, was a' lit 1 1 ed and shy. But my companion something- of her own happy ease to her gentler After a short conv< ■ went to Lilian, who was in a little room en the ground floor, fitted up as her study. I to perceive that my interdict of the death chamber had She reclined on window, which was, however, ed; the light of the bright May-day obscured by the hearth ; the air of the ; !. insensible, exploded ; are confined on sus- we entered m ; her ad with difficulty I i lips on seeing her. She iMiin the i red, and on the aspect of d a melancholy. But as she slowl; ihd of our footsteps, and her eyes met mine, into the : she half sank her. T .,] a low h Was'i possible that I hail been in that < arning knell of hful life ] I sal down by her side. * 1 lured her on to talk of indifferent Jul gardens, the bird in the cage, which her. Her voice, at first lo\ feeble >\ and ber face lighted up with .■•ait pla; ' : had not been mis I was no iympl ment on which consump- its lawful prey — h hectic pulse, no ried waste of' the vltai flame. Quietly and I observations, addressed my que plied my stethesc and when I turned n.; wards her mother's anxious, i eyes, that face . for her mother sprang forward, cl :!i her struggling tears, . "You smile! You see nothing 'to fear?/' "Fear — no, indeed! You will soon be again yourself, Miss Ashleigh, will you not ? " " Yes," '• I shall be well very soon. But may I not have the window open .'may I not go into the garden ? I so long for fresh air." "No, no, darling," exclaimed Mrs. Ashleigh, "not while the A STRANGE STORY. 49 cast winds last. Dr. Jones said on no account. On no account. Dr. Fenwick, eh ?" "Will you take my arm, Miss Ashleigh, and walk about the room?" said I. "We will then see how far we may rebel against Dr. Jones." She rose with some little effort, hut {here was no cough. At first her step was languid — it became lighter and more clastic after a few moments. "Let her come out." said T to Mrs. Ashleigh. " The wind is riot in the east, and, while we are out, pray hid your servant lower to the last bar in the grate, that fire — only fit for Christ- inas." " I Jut— " " Ah, no huts. He is a poor doctor who is not a stem despot." So the straw hat and mantle were sent for. Lilian was wrapped with unnecessary care, and we all went forth into the garden. Involuntarily we took the way to the monk's well, and at every step Lilian seemed to revive under the bracing air and temperate sun. We paused by the well. "You do not led fatigued, Miss Ashleigh t" "No." " But your face seems changed. It is grown sadder. " Not sadder." " Sadder than when 1 firsl saw it — saw it when you were seated here ! " I said this in a whisper. I felt her hand tremble as it lay on my arm. " You saw me seated here !" "Yes. I will teU.you how someday." Lilian lifted her eyes to mine, and there was in them that same surprise which I had noticed on my first visit — a surprise that perplexed me, blended with no displeasure, but yet with a some- thing of vague alarm. We soon returned to the house. Mrs. Ashleigh made me a sign to follow her into the drawing- room, leaving Mrs. Poyntz with Lilian. " Well ?" said she, tremblingly. "Permit me to see Dr. Jones's prescriptions. Thank you. Ay, I thought so. My dear Madam, the mistake here has been in depressing nature instead of strengthening; in narcotics in- stead of Btimulants. The main stimulants which leave no reac- tion are air and light. Promise me that I may have my own way for a week ; that all I recommend will be implicitly heeded I" " I promise. But that cough ; you noticed it?" " lea. The nervous system is terribly lowered, and nervous exhaustion, is a strange impostor — if imitates all manner of .com- plaints with which it has no connection. The cough will soon dis- appear ! But pardon my question. Mrs. Poyntz tells me that you 4 50 A STRANttE STOKV. consulted a clairvoyant about your < aught er. Does Miss Ashleigh know that you did so 1 " " Mo, I did not tell her." " I am glad of that. And pray, for Heaven's salve, guard her against all that may set her thinking on such subjects. Above all, guard her against concentring attention on any malady that your fears erroneously ascribe to her. It is among the phenomena of our organization that you cannot closely rivet your conscious- ness on any part of the frame, however healthy, but it will soon begin to exhibit morbid sensibility. Try to fix all your atten- tion on your little finger for half an hour, and before the half hour is over the little finger will be uneasy, probably even painful. How serious then is the danger to a young girl at the age in which imagination is most active, most intense, if you force upon her a belief that she is in danger of a mortal disease ; it is a peculiarity of youth to brood over the thoughl of early death much more re signeuly, much more complacently, than we do in maturer years. Impress on a young imaginative girl, as free from pulmonary ten- dencies as you and I are, the conviction that she must fade away into the grave, and though slie may not actually die of consump- tion, you instill slow poison into her system. Hope is the natural aliment of youth. You impoverish nourishment where you dis- courage hope. as this temporary illness is over, reject for your daughter the melancholy care which seems to her own mind to mark her out from others of her age. Bear her for the air — which is the kindest life-giver; to sleep with open windows; lobe out at sunrise. Nature will do more for her than all our drugs can do. You have been hitherto fearing nature, now trust to her.'' Here JWrs. Poyntz joined us, and having, while 1 had been speak- ing, written my prescription and some general injunctions, I closed my advice with an appeal to that powerful protectress. " This, my dear Madam, is a case in which 1 need your aid, and 1 ask it. Miss Ashleigh should not lie left with no other com- panion than her mother. A change offaces is often as salutary as a change of air. If you could devote an hour or two this very evening to sit with Miss Ashleigh, to talk to her with your usual easy cheerfulness, and — " " Anne," interrupted Mrs. Poyntz, " I will come and drimV with you at half-past seven, and bring my knitting ; and perhaps, if you ask him, Dr. Fenwick will come too ! He can he tolerably entertaining when he likes it." " It is too great a tax on his kindness, I fear," said Mrs. Ash- leigh. " But," she added, cordially, " I should he grateful indeed if he would spare us an hour of his time." I murmured an assent, which I endeavored to make not too joyous. " So that matter is settled," said Mrs. Poyntz ; " and now I shall go to Mr. Vigors, and prevent his further interference." A STRANGE 8T0RY. 51 "Oh! but, Margaret, pray dont offend him; a connection of my poor dear Gilbert's. And so techy! I am sura I do not know how you'll manage to — " " To get rid of him ? Never fear. As I manage everything and everybody," said Mrs. Poyntz, bluntly. Bo she kissed her friend on the forehead, gave me a gracious nod, and/declining the offer of my carriage, walked with her usual brisk, decided tread down the short path toward the town. Mrs. Ashleigh timidly approached me. and again the furtive hand bashfully insinuating the hateful fee ! "Stay," said 1 ; "this is a case which needs the most constant watching. I wish to call so often that 1 should seem the most greedy of doctors if my visits were to he computed at guineas. Let me he at ease to effect my cure ; my pride of science is in- volved in it. And when among all the young ladies of the Hill you can point to none with a fresher hloom, or a fairer promise of healthful life than the patienl you intrust to my care, why, then the fee and the dismissal. Nay, nay ; 1 must refer you to our friend, Mrs. Poyntz. It was so settled with her before she brought me here to displace Dr. Jones." Therewith I escaped. CHAPTER XV. In less than a week Lilian was convalescent; in less than a fortnight she regained her usual health ; nay, Mrs. Ashleigh de- clared that she had never known her daughter appear so cheerful and look so well. I had estahlished a familiar intimacy at Abbots' House ; most of my evenings were spent there. As horse exercise formed an important part of my advice, Mrs. Ashleigh had pur- chased a pretty and quiet horse for her daughter ; and, except the weather was very unfavorable, Lilian now rode daily with Colonel Poyatz, who was a notable equestrian, and often accompanied by Miss Jane Poyntz, and other young ladies of the Hill. I was generally relieved from my duties in time to join her as she re- turned homeward. Thus we made innocent appointments openly, frankly, in her mother's presence, she telling me beforehand in what direction excursions had been planned with Colonel Poyntz, and I promising to fall in with the party — if my avocations would permit. At my suggestion, Mrs. Ashleigh now opened her house almost even' evening to some of the neighboring families. Lilian was thus habituated to the intercourse of young persons of bet own age. Music and dancing and childlike games made the old house gay. And the Hill gratefully acknowledged to Mrs. Poyntz " that the Ashleighs were indeed a great acquisition." ~j2 a stjsange story. But my happiness was uot uncheckered. la thus unselfishly surrounding- Lilian with others, I felt fche anguish of that jealousy which is inseparable from those earlier stages of love — when the lover as yet has won no right to that self-confidence which can only spring from the assurance that he is loved. In these social reunions I remained aloof from Lilian. I saw her courted by the gay young admirers whom her beauty and her fortune drew around her ; her soft face brightening in the exercise of the dance, which the gravity of my profession rather Hum my years forbade me to join — and her laugh, so musically subdued, ravishing my ear and fretting my heart as if the laugh were a mockery on my sombre self and my presumptuous dreams. But no, suddenly, shyly, her eyes would steal away from those about her, steal to the corner in which I sat, as if they missed me, and, meeting my own gaze, their light softened before they turned away ; and the color on her cheek would deepen, aud to her lip there came a smile different from the smile that it shed on others. And then — and then — all jealousy, all sadness van- ished, and I felt the glory which blends with the growing i ped. In that diviner epoch of man's mysterious passions, when ideas ion and purity, vague and fugitive before, start forth and Concentre themselves round une virgin shape — that rises out from creation, welcomed by the Houries and adorned by the Graces — how the thought that this archetype of sweetness and iself from the millions, singles himself for her \s and lifts up his being. Though after experience may rebuke the mortal's illusion that- mistook for a daughter of heaven a creature of clay like himself, yet for a while the illusion has grandeur. Though it comes from the senses which shall later ss and profane it, the senses at first sink into shade, awed and hushed by the presence that charms them. All that is bright- est and best in the man has soared up like long dormant instincts of Heaven, to greet and to hallow what to him seems lire's fairest dream of the heavenly ! Take the wings from the image of Love, and the go ars iVoin the form ! Thus, if at niements.jealous doubt made my torture, so the mo- ment's relief from it sufficed for my rapture. But I had a cause squiet less acute but less varying than jealousy. Despite Lilian's recovery from the special illness which had more immediately absorbed my care, 1 remained perplexed as to its cause and true nature. To her mother I gave it the convenient epithet of " nervous." But the epithet did not explain to myself all the symptoms I classified by it. There was still, at times, when no cause was apparent or conjecturable, a sudden change in the expression of her countenance ; in the beat of her pulse ; the eye would become fixed, the bloom would vanish, the pulse would sink feebler and feebler till it could be scarcely felt ; yet there was A STRANGE STOItV. 38 no indication of heart disease, of which such sudden lowering of life is, in itself, sometimes a warning indication. The change would pass away after a few minutes, during which she seemed uncon- scious, or, at least, never spoke — never appeared to heed what was said to her. But in the expression of her countenance there was no character of suffering or distress; on i he contrary, a wondrous serenity that made her beauty more beauteous, her very youthful- uess younger ; and when this spurious or partial kind of syn passed, she recovered at once without effort, without acknowledg- ing that she had 'fclr faint or unwell, hut rather with a sense of recruited vitality, as the weary obtain from a sleep. For the rest, her spirits were more generally light and joyous than 1 should have premised from her mother's previous description. She would enter mirthfully into the mirth of young companions round her; she had evidently quick perceptions of the sunny sides of life; an infantine gratitude for kindness; an infantine joy in the trifles that amuse only those who delight in tastes pure and simple. But when talk rose into grave and more contemplative topics, her attention be- came earnest and absorbed, and sometimes a rich eloquence, such as I have never before or since heard from lips SO young, would startle me first into a wondering silence, and soon into a disap- proving alarm. For the thoughts she then uttered seemed to me too fantastic, too visionary, mo much akin to the vagaries of a wild though beautiful imagination. And then I would seek to check, to sober, to distract fancies with which my reason had no sympathy, and the indulgence of which I regarded as injurious to the normal functions of the brain. When thus, sometimes with a chilly sentence, sometimes with a half-sarcastic laugh, I would repress outpourings frank and musical as the songs .of a forest bird, she would look at me with a kind of plaintive sorrow — sometimes sigh and shiver as she turned away. ( )nly in these modes did she show displeasure ; otherwise ever sweet and docile, and ever, if, seeing that I had pained her, I asked forgiveness, humbling herself rather to ask mine, and brightening our reconciliation with her angel smile. As yet I had not dared to speak of love ; as yet I gazed on her as the captive gazes on the flowers and the stars through the grating of his cell, murmuring to himself "When shall the doors unclose?" 54 A STRANGB STORY. CHAPTER XVI. It was with wrath suppressed in the presence of the fair am- bassadress that Mr. Vigors had received from Mrs. Ppyntz the intelligence that I had replaced Dr. Jones at Abbots' House, not less abruptly than Dr. Joues had previously supplanted me. As Mrs. Poyntz took upon herself the whole responsibility of this change, Mr. Vigors did uot venture to condemn it to her face : for the Administrator of Laws was at heart no little in awe of the Autocrat of Proprieties : as Authority, howsoever established, is in awe of Opinion, howsoever capricious. To the mild Mrs. Ashleigh, the magistrate's anger was more deeidedly manifested. He ceased from his visits, and in answer to a long and deprecatory letter with which she endeavored to soften his resentment and win him back to the house, be replied by an elaborate .combination of homily and satire. He began by ex- cusing himself from accepting her invitations on the ground that his time was valuable, his habits domestic ; and though ever will- ing to sacrifice both time and habits where he could do good, he owed it to himself and to mankind to sacrifice neither where his advice was rejected and his opinion contemned, ile glanced briefly, but not hastily, at the respect with which her late husband had de- ferred to his judgment, and the benefits which that deference had enabled him to bestow. He contrasted the husband's deference with the widow's contumely, and hinted at the evils which contumely would not permit him to prevent. He could not pre- sume to say what women of the world might think due to deceased husbands, but even women of the world generally allowed the claims of living children, and did not act with levity where their interests were concerned, still less where their lives were at stake. As to Dr. Jones, he, Mr. Vigors, had the fullest confidence in his skill. Mrs. Ashleigh must judge for herself whether Mrs. Poyntz was as good an authority upon medical science as he had no doubt she was upon shawls and ribbons. Dr. Joues was a man of cau- tion aud modesty ; he did not indulge in the hollow boasts by which charlatans decoyed their dupes ; but Dr. Jones had. private- ly assured him that though the case was one that admitted of no rash experiments, he had no fear of the result if his own prudent system were persevered in. What might be the consequences of any other system Dr. Jones would not say, because he was too high-minded to express his distrust of the rival who had made use of under-hand arts to supplant him. But Mr. Vigors was con- vinced, from other sources of information (meaning, I presume, the A STRANOB SToitY. oracular prescience of his clairvoyants,) that the time would come when the poor young lady herself would insist on discarding Dr. Fenwick, and when ••Thar person" would appear in a very differ- ent light to many who now so fondly admired' and so rev trusted lum. When that time arrived, lie. Mr. Vigors, might again be of use; but, mean while, though he declined to renew his inti- macy at Abbots' House, or to pay unavailing visits of mere niony, Ids interest in the daughter of his old friend remained undi- minished, nay, was rather increased by compassion; that he should silently keep his eye upon her j and whenever any thing to her advantage suggested itself to him, lie should not he deterred by the slight with which Mrs. Ashleigh .had treated his judgment from calling on her, and placing before her conscience as a mother his ideas for her child's benefit, leaving to herself then, as now, the entire responsibility of rejecting tin- advice which he might say, without vanity, was deemed of some value by those who could distinguish between sterling qualities and specious preten< Mrs. Ashleigh's was that thoroughly womanly nature which instinctively leans upon others. She was diffident, trustful, meek, affectionate. Not quite* justly twid Mrs. Poyntz described her as "commonplace and weak," for though she might he called weak, it Wag not because ahfl was commonplace; she had a goodness of heart, a sweetness of disposition, to which that disparaging defini- tion could not apply. She could only be called commonplace, in- asmuch as in fcbe ordinary daily affairs of life she had a great deal irdinary daily commonplace good sense. Give her a routine to follow, and no routine could he better adhered to. In the allotted sphere of a woman's duties she never seemed at fault. No house- hold, not even Mrs. 1'oyntz's, was more happily managed. The old Abbots' House had merged its original antique gloom in the ■ character of pleasing repose. All her servants adored Mrs. Ashleigh; all found ita pleasure to please her; her establishment had the harmony of clock-work; comfort diffused itself round her like quiet sunshine round a sheltered spot To gaze on her pleas- ing countenance, to listen to the simple talk that lapsed from her guileless lips in even, slow, and lulling murmur, was in itself a respite from "eating cares." She was to the mind what the color .ecu is to the eye. She had. therefore, excellent sense in all that relates to everyday life. There, she needed not to consult another; there, the wisest might have consulted her with profit. J'.ut the moment any thing, however in itself trivial, jarred on the routine to which her mind had grown wedded; the moment an in- cident hurried her out of the beaten track of woman's daily life, then her confidence forsook Iter ; then she needed a confidant, an adviser, and by that confidant or adviser she could he credulously lured or submissively controlled. Therefore, when she lost, in Mr. Vigors, the guide she had been accustomed to consult when- ever she needed guidance, she turned helplessly and piteously, first 56 A STRANGE STORY. to Mrs. Poyntz, and then yet more imploringly to me, because a woman of that character is never quite satisfied without the advice of a man. And where an intimacy more familiar than that of his formal visits is once established with a physician, confidence in him grows fearless and rapid, as the natural result of sympathy concentrated on an object of anxiety in common between himself and the home which opens its sacred recess to his observant but tender eye. Thus Mrs. Ashleigh had shown me Mr. Vigors' letter, and forgetting that I might not be as amiable as herself, besought me to counsel her how to conciliate and soften her lost husband's friend and connection. That character clothed him with dignity and awe in her soft, forgiving eyes. So, smothering my own re- sentment, less. perhaps at the tone of offensive insinuation against myself than at the arrogance with which this prejudiced inter- meddler implied to a mother the necessity of his guardian watch over a child under her own care, I sketched a reply which seemed to me both dignified and placatory, abstaining from all discussion, and conveying the assurance that Mrs. Ashleigh would be a( all times glad to hear, and disposed to respect, whatever suggestion so esteemed a friend of her husband's would kindly submit to her for the welfare of her daughter. There all communication had slopped for about, a month since the date of my reintroduction to Abbots' House. One afternoon 1 unexpectedly met Mr. Vigors at the entrance of the blind lane, 1 on my way to Abbots' House;, ami my first glance at his face told me that he was coming from it, for the expression of that face was more than usually sinister; the sullen scowl was lit into significant menace by a sneer of unmistakable triumph. I felt at once that he had succeeded in some machination against me, and with ominous misgiving quickened my steps. I found Mrs. Ashleigh seated alone in front of the house, under a large cedar-tree that formed a natural arbor in the center of the sunny lawn. She was perceptibly embarrassed as I took my seal beside her. " I hope," said I, forcing a smile, " that Mr. Vigors has not been telling you that I shall kill my patient, or that she looks much worse than she did under Dr. Jones' care 1 " " No," she said. " He owned cheerfully that Lilian was grown quite strong, and said, without any displeasure, that he had heard how gay she had been ; riding out and even dancing — which is very kind in him — for he disapproves dancing, on principle." " But still, I can see he has said something to vex or annoy you; and, to judge by' his countenance when I met him in the lane, I should conjecture that that something was intended to lower the confidence you so kindly repbse in me." " I assure you not; he did not mention your name, either to me or to Lilian. I never knew him more friendly ; quite like old A STRANGE STORY. 57 times. He is a good man at heart, very ; and was mneh attached to my poor husband." '• Did Mr. Ashleigh profess a very high opinion of Mr. Vigo " Well) I don't quite know that, because my dear Gilbert never spoke tome much about him. Gilbert was naturally very silent. But he shrank from all trouble — all worldly affairs — and Mr. Vigors managed bis estate, and inspected his steward's hooks, and protected him through a long lawsuit which he had inherited his father. It killed his father. I don't know what we should have done without Mr. Vigors, and I am so glad he has forgiven me." " Hem ! Where is Miss Ashleigh I In-doors .'" "No: somewhere in the grounds. Hut my dear Dr. Fenwick. >1 leave me yet ; you arc so very, very kind ; and somehow 1 • grown to look on you quite as an old friend. Something has happened which has put me out — quite put me out." She said this wearily and feebly, closing her eyes as if she were indeed put our in the sense of extinguished. " 'the feeling of friendship you express," said I, with earnest- ness, •• is reciprocal. On my side it is accompanied with a peculiar gratitude. I am a lonely man, by a lonely fireside — no parents, no near kindred, ajul in this town, since Dr. Faher left it, no cor- dial intimacy till I knew you. In admitting me so familiarly to your hearth, you have given me what I have never known I since 1 came to man's estate: a glimpse of the happy domestic life ; the charm and relief to eye. heart, and spirit, which is never known hut in households cheered by the face of woman : thus my sentiment for you and yours is indeed that of an old friend ; anil in any private confidence you show me, 1 feel as if I were no longer a lonely man, without kindred, without home." Mrs. Ashleigh seemed much moved by these words, which my heart had forced from my lips, an. ylying to me with simple unaffected warmth of kindness, she rose, ionic my arm, and con- tinued thus as we walked slowly to and tro the lawn : " You know, perhaps, that my poor husband left a sister, now a widow as myself, Lady Haughton." '■ 1 remember that Mrs. Poyntz said you had such a sister, but 1 never heard you mention Lady Haughton till now. Well !" "Well. Mr. Vigors has brought me a letter from her, and it is that which has put me out. I dare say you have not heard me speak before of Lady Haughton, for I am ashamed to say I had almost forgotten her existence. She is many years older than my husband was: of a very different character. Only Came once to see him after our marriage. Hurt me by ridiculing him as a hook- worm. ( MVended him by looking a little down on me, as a nobody Without spiril and fashion, which was quite true. And, except In a cold and unfeeling letter of formal condolence after i dear Gilbert, I never heard from her since I have been a widow 58 A STRANGE STORY. till to-day. But, after all, she is my poor husband's sister, and his elder sister, and Lilian's aunt. ; and, as Mr. Vigors says, ' Duty is duty.' " Had Mrs. Ashleigh said " Duty is torture," she could not have uttered the maxim with more mournful and despondent a re- signation. " And what does this lady require of you, which Mr. Vigors deems it your duty to comply with ? " " Dear me ! what penetration ! You have guessed the exact truth. But I think you will agree with Mr. Vigors. Certainly I have no option ; yes, I must do it." " My penetration is in fault now. Do what 1 Pray explain '?" " Poor Lady Haughton, six months ago, lost her only son, Sir James. Mr. Vigors says he was a very tine young man, of whom any mother would have been proud ; I had heard he was wild. Mr. Vigors says, however, that he was just going to reform, and marry a young lady whom his mother chose for him, when, unluckily, he would ride a steeple-chase, not being quite sober at the time, and broke his neck, Lady Haughton has been, of course, in great grief. She has retired to Brighton ; and she wrote to me from thence, and Mr. Vigors brought the letter. He will go back to her to-day." " Will go hack to Lady Haughton \ What! has he been to her? Is he, then, as intimate with Lady Haughton as he was with her brother?" " No ; but there has been a long and constant correspondence. She had a settlement on the Kirby estate — a sum which was not paid off during Gilbert's life ; and a very small part of the property went to Sir James, which part Mr. Ashleigh Sumner, the heir-at- law to the rest of the estate, wished .Mr. Vigors, as his guardian, to buy during his minority, and as it was mixed up with Lady Haughton's settlement, her consent was necessary as well as Sir James'. So there was much negotiation, and, since then, Ash- leigh Sumner has come into the Haughton properly, on poor Sir James' decease; so, that complicated all affairs between Mr. Vigors and Lady Haughton, and he has just been to Brighton to see her. And poor Lady Haughton, in short, wants me and Lilian to come and visit her. I don't like it at all. But you said the other day you thought sea air might be good for Lilian during the heat of the summer, and she seems well enough now for the change. What do you think ?" " She is well enough, certainly. But Brighton is not the place I would recommend for the summer; it wants shade, and is much hotter than L ." " Yes, but unluckily Lady Haughton foresaw that objection, and she has a jointure-house some miles from Brighton, and near the sea. She says the grounds are well wooded, and the place is pro- verbially cool and healthy, not far from St. Leonard's Forest. And, A STRANGE STORY. 59 in short, I have written to say we will come. So we must, unless, indeed, yon positively forbid it." •' When do you think of going?" "Next Monday. Mr. Vigors would have me fix Hie day. If you knew how I dislike moving when I am once settled ; and I do so dread Lady Haughton, she is so fine and. so satirical. But Mr. Vigori says she is very much altered, poor thing! 1 should like to show you her letter, but I had just sent it to Margaret — Mrs. Poyntaz — a minute or two before you came. She knows something of Lady Haughton. Margaret knows everybody. And we shall have to go in mourning for poor Sir James, I suppose ; and Mar- garet will choose il. for I am sure 1 ean't guess to what extent we should he supposed to mourn. 1 ought to have gone in mourning before — poor Gilbert's nephew — hut I am so stupid, and 1 had never seen him. And — hut oh, this w kind ! Margaret herself — my deal- Margaret !"• We had just turned away from the house, in our up and down walk ; and Mrs. Poyntz stood immediately fronting us. ".So Anne, you have actually accepted this invitation — and for Monday next .'" " Yes. Did I do wrong ?" " What does Dr. Femvick say ? Can Lilian go with safety ?" I could not honestly say she might not go with safety ; hut' my heart sank like lead as 1 answered : " Miss Ashleigh does not, now need merely medical care; hut more than half her cure has depended on keeping her spirits free from depression. She may miss the cheerful companionship of your own daughter, and other young ladies of her own age; a very nielaftcholy house, saddened by a recent bereavement, without other guests ; t i\ hostess to whom she is a stranger, and whom Mrs. Ashleigh herself appears to deem formidable. Certainly these do not make that change of scene which a physician would recommend. When 1 spoke of sea air being good for .Miss Ashleigh, I thought of our own northern coasts, at a later time of the year, when I could escape myself for a few weeks and attend iter. The journey, too, would be shorter and less fatiguing; the air more invigo- rating." " No doubt that would be belter," said Mrs. Poyntz, dryly ; "but so far as your objections to visiting Lady Haughton have been stated, they are groundless. Her house will not be melan- choly ; she will have other guests, and Lilian will find other com- panions young like herself — young ladies and young gentlemen, tool" There was something ominous, something compassionate, in the look which .Mrs. Poyntz cast upon me, in concluding her speech, which in itself was calculated to rouse the fears of a lover. Lilian away from me, in the house of a worldly fine lady — such as 1 judged Lady Haughton to be — surrounded by young gentlemen, 60 A STKANGE STORY. as well as young ladies, by admirers, no doubt, of a higher rank and more brilliant fashion than she had yet known ! I closed my eyes, and with a strong effort suppressed a groan. " My dear Anne, let me satisfy myself that Dr. Fenwick really does consent to this journey. He will say to me what he may not to you. Pardon me, then, if I take him aside for a few minutes. Let me find you here again under this cedar-tree." Placing her arm in mine, and without waiting for Mrs. Ashleigh's answer, Mrs. Poyutz drew me into the more sequestered Walk that belted the lawn ; and, when we were out of Mrs. Ashleigh's sight and hearing, said : ' From what you have now seen of Lilian Ashleigh, do you still desire to gain her as your wife ] " " Still 1 Oil ! with an intensity proportioned to the fear with which I now dread that she is about to pass away from my eyes — from my life ! " " Does your judgment confirm the choice of your heart 1 Ke- flect before you answer." " Such selfish judgment as 1 had before I knew her would not confirm, but oppose it. The nobler judgment that now expands all my reasonings, approves and seconds my heart. No, no; do not smile so sarcastically. This is not the voice of a blind and egotistical passion. Let me explain myself if I can. I concede, to you that Lilian's character is undeveloped. I concede to you that, amidst the childlike freshness and innocence of her nature, there is at times a strangeness, a mystery, which I have not yet traced to its cause. But I am certain that the intellect is organi- cally as sound as the heart, and that intellect and heart will ulti- mately — if under happy auspices — blend in that felicitous union which constitutes the perfection of woman. But it is Itecaus does, and may for years, may perhaps always, need a more devoted, thoughtful care than natures less tremulously sensitive, that my judgment sanctions my choice ; for whatever is best for her is best for me. And who would watch over her as I should I " "You have never yet spoken to Lilian as lovers speak ? " " Oh, no, indeed." "And, nevertheless, you believe that your affection would not be unreturned 1 " " I thought so once — I doubt now — yet, in doubting, hope. But why do you alarm me with these questions I You, too, forebode that in this visit I may lose her forever ? " " If you fear that, tell her so, and perhaps her answer may dispel your fear 1 " "What, now — already, when she has scarcely known me a month ! Might I not risk all if too premature I " *f hues of the setting sun ; and how wistfully;; m had followed her own silent gaze into the distant heaven. As I spoke her hand pressed mine eagerly, convulsively, and, raising her face from my breast, she looked at me with an intent, anxious earnestness. That look! — twice before it had thrilled and perplexed me. " What is there in that look, oh, my Lilian, which tells me that there is something that startles you — something you wish to con- fide, and yet shrink from explaining ? See how, already, I study the fair book from which the seal has been lifted, but as yel must aid me to construe its language.'' r If I shrink from explaining, it is only because I fear that I cannot explain so as to be understood or believed. But yon have a right to know the secrets of a life which you would link to your own. Turn your face aside from me; a reproving look, an incred- A STKANUE STORY. 63 ulous smile, chill — oh ! — you cannot guess how they chill me — when I would approach that which to me is so serious and so solemnly strange.*' I turned my face aside, and her voice grew firmer as, after a brief" pause, she resumed : 4i As far back as 1 can remember in my infancy, there have been moments when there seems to fall a soft, hazy veil between my sight and the things around it, thickening and deepening till it has the likeness of one of those white fleecy clouds which gather on the verge of the horizon when the air is yet still, but the winds are about to rise, and then 1 his vapor or veil will suddenly open, as clouds open, and let in the blue sky." "Go on,'* 1 said gently, for here she came to a stop. She continued, speaking somewhat more hurriedly. "Then, in that opening, strange appearances present themselves 1o me, as in a vision. In my childhood these were chiefly land- scapes of wonderful beauty. 1 could but faintly describe them then ; 1 could not attempt to describe them now, for they are al- most gone from my memory. My dear mother chid me for telling her what I saw. so I did not impress ii on my mind by repeating it. As I grew up, this kind of vision — if 1 may sit call it — be- came much less frequent or much less distinct ; 1 still saw the sofl veil fall, the pale cloud form and open, but often what may then have appeared was entirely forgotten when I recovered my- self, waking «*; from a sleep. Sometimes, however, the recollec- tion would he vivid and complete; sometimes 1 saw the fai my lost, father ; sometimes 1 heard his very voice, as 1 had seen and heard him in my early childhood, when he would let me rest for hours beside him as he mused or studied, happy to be so quietly near him — for 1 loved him, oh, so dearly! and I remember him so distinctly, though I was only in my sixth year when he died. "Much more recently, indeed, within the last few months — the images of things to come are reflected on the space that I gaze into as clearly as in a glass. Thus, for weeks before I came hither, or knew that such a place existed, 1 saw distinctly the old House, yon trees, this sward, this moss-grown Gothic fount, and, with the sight, an impression was conveyed to me that in the scene before me my old childlike life would pass into some solemn change. So that when I came here, and recognized the picture in my vision, 1 took an affection for the spot; an affection not without' awe ; a powerful, perplexing interest, as one who feeds under the influence of a fate of which a prophetic glimpse has been vouchsafed. And in that evening when you fkst saw me, seated here — " " Yes, Lilian, on that evening — ?" " I saw you also, but in my vision — yonder, far in the deeps of space — and — and my heart was stirred as it had never been before; ami near where your image grew out from the cloud I saw my 64 A STRANGE STORY. father's face, and I beard his voice, not in my ear, but as in my heart whispering — " " Yes, Lilian, whispering — what 1" •• These words — only these — ' Ye will need one another.' But then, suddenly, between my upward eyes and the two forms they had beheld, there rose from the earth, obscuring the skies, a vague dusky vapor, undulous, and coiling like a vast serpent, nothing, indeed, of its shape and figure definite, but of its face one abrupt glare — a flash from two dread luminous eyes, and a young bead, like the Medusa's, changing more rapidly than I could have drawn breath into a grinning skull. Then my terror made me bow my head, and when I raised it again all that I had seen was vanished. But the terror still remained, even when I felt my mother's arm round me and heard her voiee. And then, when I entered the bouse and sat down again alone, the recollection of what I had seen — those eyes — that face — that skull — grew on me stronger and stronger till I fainted, and remember no more until my eyes, opening, saw you by ray side, and in my wonder there was not terror ; no, a sense of joy, protection, hope, yet still shadowed by a kind of tear or awe, in recognizing the countenance which had gleamed on me from the skies before the dark vapor had risen, and while my father's voice had murmured, ' Ye will need one an- other.' And now — and now — will you love n:e less that you know a secret in my being which 1 have told to no other — cannot con- strue to myself? — only — only, at least, do not mock me — do not disbelieve me. Nay, turn from me no longer now : now I ask to meet your eyes. Now, before our bands can join again, tell me thai you do hot despise me a* untruthful, do not pity me as insane."! " Hush — hush ! " I said, drawing her to my breast, " Of all you tell me, we will talk hereafter. The scales of our science have no weights fine enough for the gossamer threads of a maiden's pure fancies. Enough for me — for us both — if out from all such illu- sions start one truth told to yon, lovely child, from the heavens; told to me, ruder man, on the earth — repeated by each pulse of this heart that woos you to hear and to trust; now and henceforth, through life unto death — 'Each has need of the other' — 1 of you — I of you ! my Lilian ! — my Lilian ! " CHAPTER XVIII. * In spite of the previous assurance of Mrs. Poyntz, it was not without an uneasy apprehension that 1 approached the cedar-tree, under which Mrs. Ashleigh still sat, her friend beside her. I looked on the fair creature whose arm was linked in mine. So young, so singularly lovely, and with all the gitts of birth aud A 8TRANQB STOHY. 65 fortune which bend avarice and ambition the more submissively to youth and beauty, I felt as if I had wronged what a parent might justly deem her natural lot. , •• i ih, if your mother should disapprove," said, I falterinj Lilian leaned on my arm less lightly. "If I had though! so," she said, with her soft blush, " should I be thus by your side ?" So we passed under the boughs of the dark tree, and Lilian left me, and kissed Mrs. Ashleigh's cheek, then seating herself on the turf, laid her lead quietly on her mother's lap. I looked on the Queen of the Hill, whose keen eye shot over me. I thought there was a momentary expression of pain or displeasure, on her countenance ; but it passed. Still there seemed to me something of irony, as well as of triumph or congratulation, in the half smile with which she quitted her seat, and in the tone with which she whispered, as she glided by me to the open sward, " So then, it is settled." She walked lightly and quickly down the lawn. When she was out of sight, I breathed more -freely. I took the seat which she had quitted, by Mrs. Ash eigh's side, and said, "A little while ago, 1 spoke of myself as a man without kindred, without borne, and now I come to you and ask for both." Mrs. Ashleigh looked at me benignly, then raised her daughter's face from her lap, and whispered, " Lilian," and Lilian's lips moved, but I did not hear her answer. Her mitt her did. She took Lilian's hand, simply placed it in mine, and said. "As she chooses, I choose ; whom she loves, I love." CHAPTER XIX. FBOM'that evening till the day Mrs. Ashleigh and Lilian went on the dreaded visit, I was always at their house when my avo- cations allowed me to steal to it ; and during those few days, the happiest J had ever known, it seemed to me that years could not have more deepened my intimacy with Lilian's exquisite Wtttfre, made me more reverential of its purity, or more enamored of its sweetness. I could detect in her but. one fault, and I rebuked myself for believing that it was a fault. We sec many who ne- glect the minor duties of life, who lack watchful forethought and considerate care for others, and we recognize the cause of this failing in levity or egotism. Certainly neither of those tendencies! of character could be ascribed to Lilian. Yet still in daily trifles there was something of that neglect, some lack of that care and forethought. She loved her mother with fondness and devotion, yet it never occurred to her to aid in those petty household cares 5 66 A STRANGE STORY. in which her mother centred so much of habitual interest. She was full of tenderness and pity to all want and suffering, yet many a young lady on the Hill was more actively beneficent — visiting the poor in their sickness, or instructing their childrerr- in the Infant Schools. I was persuaded that her love for me was deep and truthful ; it was clearly void of all ambition ; doubt- less she wou'd have borne unflinching and contented whatever the world considers to be sacrifice and privation — yet I should never" have expected her to take her share in the troubles of ordinary life. I could never have applied to her the homely but significant name of helpmate. I reproach myself while I write for noticing such defect— if defect it were — in what may be called the practi- cal routine of our positive, trivial, human existence. No doubt it- was this that had caused Mrs.Poyntz's harsh judgment against the Wisdom of my choice. But such chiller shade upon her charming nature was reflected from no inert unamiable self-love. It was but the consequence of that self-absorption which the habit .of reverie had fostered. I cautiously abstained from all allusion to those visionary deceptions, which she had confided to me, as the truthful impressions of spirit if not of sense. To me any approach to what I termed superstition was displeasing ; any in- dulgence of phantasies not within the measured and beaten tracks of healthful imagination, more than displeased me in her — it; alarmed. I wonld'not by a word encourage her in persuasions which I felt, it would be at present premature to reason against, and erne: indeed to ridicule. 1 was convinced that of themselves these mists round her native intelligence, engendered by a solitary and musing childhood, would subside in the fuller daylight of wedded life. She seemed pained when she saw how resolutely I shunned a subject dear to her thoughts. She made. one or two timid attempts to renew it, but my grave look' sufficed to check her. Once or twice, indeed, on such occasions she would turn away and leave me, but she soon came back — that gentle heart could not bear one unkind Iter shade between that and what it iined. It was agreed that our engagement should be for the present confided only to Mrs. Poyntz. When Mrs. Ashleigb and Lilian returned, which would be in a few weeks at furthest, it should be proclaimed; and our marriage could take place in the autumn, when I should be most free for one brief holiday from professional toils. So we parted — as lovers part. I felt none of those jealous fears which, before we were affianced, had made me tremble a; the thought of separation, and had conjured up irresistible rivals. — But it was with a settled heavy gloom that. I saw her depart. From earth was gone a glory ; from life a ble.ss.ing. A STRANGE STORY. 67 CHAPTER XX. DURING the busy years of my professional career T had snatched leisure for sodre professional treatises, which had made more or less sensation, and one of them, entitled " The Vital Prireiple ; its Waste and Supply," had gained a wide circulation among the general public This las) treatise contained the results of certain experiments, then new in chemistry, which were adduced in sup- port of a theory 1 entertained as to the reinvigoration of t lie hu- man system l>y principles similar to those which Liebig has applied to the replenishment of an exhausted soil, namely, the giving back to the. frame those essentials to its nutrition which it has lost by the action or accident of time ; or supplying that cial pabulum r energy in which the individual organism is con- stitutionally deficient : and neutralizing or counterbalancing in which it super. i bounds' — a theory upon which some eminent phy- sicians have more recently improved with signal success. Bui mi these essays, slight and suggestive, rather than dogmatic, I set no value. 1 had been for the last two years engaged on a work of much wider range, endeared to me by a far bolder ambition — a work upon which I fondly hoped to found an enduring repulation as a severe and original physiologist. It was an " Inquiry into Organic Life." similar in comprehensiveness of survey to that by which the illustrious duller, of Berlin, has enriched the science of cur age ; however inferior, a'as, to that august combination of thought and»lean1iiig, in tlie judgment which checks presump- tion, and the genius which adorns speculation. But at that diy I was cai ricd away by the ardor of composition, and 1 admired my performance because I loved my labor. This work had been en- tirely laid aside for the last agitated- month. Now that Lilian was gone, 1 resumed it earnestly; as the .sole occupation that had power and charm enough to rouse me from the aching sense of void and loss. The very night of the day she went I reopened my MS. I had Lift offal the commencement of a chapter "upon Knowledge as derived from cur Senses-, As my convictions on this head were founded on the well-known arguments of Locke and Oondillao against innate ideas, and on the reasonings hy which Hume had resolved the combination of sensations into a general idea, to an impulse arising merely out of habit, so 1 set myself to oppose, as a dangerous concession to the sentimentalities or mysticism of ;; |iseudo-philosopby, the doctrine favored hy most of our receht physiologists, and of which some of the most eminent of Qeriiian metaphysicians have accepted the substance, though retining into 68 A STRANGE STORY. / a subtlety its positive form — I mean the doctrine which Muller himself has expressed in these word s : '( That innate, ideas may exist, cannot in the slightest degree be * denied ; ir is, indeed, a fact All the ideas or animals, which are induced by instinct, are innate .and immediate. Something pre- sented to the mind, a desire to attain which is at the same time given. The new-born lamb and foai have such innate ideas, which lead them to follow their mother and suck the teats. Is it not in some measure the same with the intellectual ideas of man ?"* To this question I answered with an indignant "no." A "yes" would have shaken my creed of materialism to the dust. I wrote on rapidly, warmly. I defined the properties and meted the limits of natural laws, which I would not admit that a Deity himself, could alter. I clamped and. soldered dogma to dogma in the links or my tinkered logic, till out from my page, to my own complacent eye, grew Intellectual Man, as the pure formation of his material senses ; mind, or what is called soul, born from and manned by them alone ; though to act, and to perish with the machinery they moved. Strange, that at the very time my love for Lilian might have taught me that there are mysteries in the cure of the feelings which my analysis of ideas could not solve, I should so stubbornly have .opposed as unreal all that could be referred to the spiritual ! Strange, that at the very time when the thought that 1 might lose from this life the being 1 had known scarce a month had just before so appalled me, I should thus com- placently sit down to prove that according 1o t lie laws of the na- ture which my passion obeyed, I mms: lose for eternity the blessing I now Imped 1 had won to my ate! Bui iiow distinctly dissimilar is man in his conduct in ;.i ni: n in his systems! See the poet reclined under forest-bo 1 uiis, iSbuning odes to his mistress ; follow him out into the world ; no mistress ever lived fur him there ! t See the hard man of science/feo austere in his passionless prob- lems ; follow him now where'the brain rests from its toil, where the heart finds its Sabbath — what'child is so tender, so vielding and soft ? But I had proved to my own satisfaction that poet and sage are dust, and no more, when the pulse-ceases to beat. And at that consolatory conclusion my pen stopped. Suddenly beside me I distinctly heard a sigh — a compassionate, mournful sigh. The sound was unmistakable. I started from my seat ; looked round, amazed to discover no one — no living thing ! The windows were closed, the night was still. That sigh was not the wail of the wind. But there, in the darker angle of * Midler's Elements of Physiology. Vol. ii. p. 134. Translated by Dr. Baley. -^ + Cowley, who wrote so elaborate a series of amatory poems, is said "never to have been in love but once, and then he never had resolution to tell his passion." — Johnson's Lives of the Poets: Cowley. A STRANGE STORY. 6U the room, what was that? A silvery whiteness — vaguely shaped as a human form — receding, fading, gone! Why I know nor — for no face was visible, no form, if form it were, more distinct than / the colorless outline — why I know not, but I cried aloud, "Lilian ! Lilian ! " My voice came strangely hack to my own car. T smiled and blushed at my folly. " So I. too, have learned what is superstition," I muttered to myself. " And here is an anecdote at my own expense (as Miiller frankly tells us anecdotes of the illusions which would haunt bis eyes, shul or* open), an anecdote 1 may quote when I come to my Chapter on the Cheats of the Senses and Spectral Phantoms." I went on with my book, and wrote till the lights waned in the grey of the dawn. And I said then, in the triumph of my pride, as I laid myself down to ret. ' ; 1 have written that which allots with precision man's place in the region of nature; written tl at which wil found a school — form disciples : and race after race of those who cultivate truth through pure reason shall accept my basis if they enlarge my building.' And again I heard the sigh, but this time it caused no surprise. " Certainly," 1 murmured, "a very strange thing is the nervous system ! " So I turned on my pillow, and, wearied out, fell asleep. CHAPTER XXI. The next day the last of I be visiting patients to whom my forenoons were devoted had just quitted me when I was summoned in haste to attend the steward of a Sir Philip Derval, ;,ot residing at -his family scat, which was about, five miles from L- . It was rarely indeed that persons so far from the town, when of no higher raid; than this applicant, asked my services. But it was my prin- ciple to go wherever i was summoned ; my profession was not gain, it was healing, to which gain was an incident, not the essen- tial. This case the messenger reported as urgent. I went on horseback, and rode fast ; hut swiftly as I cantered through the village hat skirted the approach to Sir Philip Derval's park, the evident care bestowed on the accommodation of the cottagers forcibly struck me. I felt that I was on the lands of a rich, intelligent- and beneficent proprietor. Entering the park, and passing before the manor-bouse, the contrast between the neglect and decay of the absentee's stately ball and the smiling homes of his villagers was disconsolately mournful. An imposing pile, built apparently by Vanbrugh, the decorated pilasters, pompous portico, with grand perron (or double flight of stairs to the entrance), enriched with urns and statues, but dis- colored, mildewed, chipped, half hid with unpruned creepers and ivy. Most, of the windows were closed with shutters, decaying 70 A STRANGE STORY. for want of paint ; in some of the oasements the pains were broken ; the peacock perched on the shattered balustrade thai fenced a garden overgrown with weeds. The sun glared hotly on the place, and made its ruinous condition still mure painfully apparent, 1 was a ad when a winding in the park road shut the house from my sight. Suddenly, 1 emerged through a copse of ancient yew- trees, "and before me there gleamed, in abrupt whiteness, a building evidently designed for the family mausoleum. Classical in its outline, with the blind iron door niched into stonewalls of massive tbiciiess. and surrounded by a funereal garden of roses and ever- greens, fenced with an iron rail, parti-gilt. The suddenness with which this House of the Dead came upon me, heightened almost Into pain, if not into awe, the dismal impressions which the aspect of the deserted home, with its neigh- borhoods had made. 1 spurred my horse and soon arrived at the door of my patient, who lived in a fair brick house at the ol extremity of the park. 1 found my patient, a man somewhat advanced in years, but of a robust conformation, in bed : he had been seized with a fit. which was supposed to be apoplectic, a few hours before ; but was al- ready sensible, and out of immediate danger. After 1 had pre- scribed a few simple remedies, 1 took aside the patient's wife, and went with her to the parlor below stairs, to make some inquiry about her husband's ordinary regimen and habits of life. .These seemed sufficiently regular; 1 could discover no apparent <■. ■for the aitack, which presented Symptoms not familiar to my ex- perience. '• Has vour husband never had such fits before I " " Never." " Had he experienced any sudden emotion 1 Had he heard any une\| ected news ? or had any thing happened to put him out ?" The woman looked much disturbed at these inquiries. 1 pressed them more urgently. At last she burst into tears, and, clasping my hand, said. "Oh ! doctor, I ought to tell you — I sent for you on purpose — yot 1 fear you will not believe me — my good man has seen a ghost !" " A ghost ! " said I, repressing a smile. " Well, tell me all that I may prevent the ghost coming again." The woman's story was prolix. Its substance was this : Her husband, habitually an early riser, had left his bed that morning still earlier than usual, to give directions about some cattle that were to- he sent for sale to a neighboring fair. An hour afterwards he had been found by a shepherd near the mausoleum apparently li elcss. On being removed to his own bouse he had recovered speech, and bidding all except his wife leave the room, he then told her that on walking across the park toward the cattle-sheds he had seen what appeared to him at first a pale light by the iron door nf tire mauso'eum. On approaching nearer, this ight clanged into the distinct and visible' form of his mailer, Sir A STRANGE STORY- 71 Philip Derval, who was then abtpad — supposed to be in the $ast — where he had resided for many years. The impression on the steward's mind was so strong that be called out, "Oh! Sir Philip I ?' when, looking still more intently, lie perceived that the face was that ni' a corpse. As he continued to gaze, the apparition seemed gradually to recede, as if vanishing into the sepulchre itself, lie knew no more; he became unconscious. It was the excess of the poor woman's alarm, on hearing this strange tale, that had made her resolve to send for me instead of the parish apothecary. She fancied so astounding a cause for her husband's seizure could only be properly dealt with by some medical man reputed to have more than ordinary learning. t \nd the steward himself objected to the apothecary in the immediate neighborhood as more likely to annoy him by gossip than a physician from a comparative distance. 1 took care not to lose the confidence of the good wife by para- ding top quickly my disbelief in the phantom her hrtsband declared thai he had seen; hut as the story itself seemed at once to decide the nature of the fit to be epileptic, I began to tell her cS similar delusions which, in my experience, had occurred to those subjected to epilepsy, and finally" soothed her into the conviction that the aparition was clearly reducible to natural causes. Afterward I led her on to talk about Sir Philip Derval, less from any curiosity 1 felt about the absent proprietor than from my desire to re-famil- iarize, her own mind to his image as a living man. The steward had been in tV service of Sir Philip's father, and had known Sir Philip himself from a child, lie was warmly attached to his master, whom the old woman described as a man of rare benevo- lence and great eccentricity, which last she imputed to his studious habits, lie had succeeded to the title and estates as a minor. For llx* first few years after attaining his majority he had mixed much in the world. When at Derval Court his house had been tilled with gay companions, and was the scene of lavish hospitality. But the estate was not in proportion to the grandeur of the man- sion, still less to the expenditure oi^ the owner. He had become greatly embarrassed, and some love disappointment (so it was rumored) occurring simultaneously with his pecuniary difficulties, he had suddenly -changed his way of life, shut himself up from his old friends, lived in seclusion, taking to books and scientific pursuits*, and, as the old woman said, vaguely but expressively, " to odd ways." He had gradually, by an economy that, towards himself, was penurious, but which did not preclude much judicious generosity to others, cleared off his debts, and, once more rich, he had suddenly quitted the country, and taken to a life of travel. He was now about forty-eight years old, and had been eighteen years abroad. He wrote frequently to his steward, giving. him minute and thoughtful instructions as to the employment, com- forts, and homes of the peasantry, but. peremptorily ordering him 72 A STRAiVGE 8T0RY. to spend no money on the grounds and mansion, stating, as. a reason why the latter might be allowed to fall to decay", his in- tention to put] it down whenever he returned to England. I staid some time longer than my engagements well warranted at my patient's house, not leaving till the sufferer, after a quiet sleep, had removed from his b"ed to his arm-chair, taken food, and seened perfectly recovered from his attack. Siding homeward' I mused on the difference that education makes, even pathologically, between man and man. Here was a brawny inhabitant of the rural fields; leading the healthiest of lives, not conscious ©f the faculty we call imagination, stricken down almost to death's door "by his fright at an optical illusian, explicable, if examined, by the same simple causes which had impressed me the nighfbefbre with armoment's belief in a sound and a spectre — me, who, thanks to sublime education, went so quietly to sleep a few minutes after, convinced that no phantom, the ghostliest that ear ever heard, or eye ever saw, can be any thing else but a nefvous phenomenon. CHAPTEK XXII. That evening I went to Mrs. Poyntz's; it was one. of her or- dinary " reception nights," and 1 felt that she would naturally expect my attendance as " a proper attention." I joined a group engaged in general conversation, of which Mrs. Poyntz herself made the center, knitting, as usual, rapidly while she talked, slowly when she listened. Without mentioning the visit I had paid that morning, I turned the conversation on. the different country places in the neighbor- hood, and then incidentally asked, " What sort of a man is Sir Philip Derval 1 Is it not strange that he should suffer so fine a place to fall into decay'] " The answers I received added little to the information I had already obtained. Mrs. Poyntz knew nothing of Sir Philip Derval, except as a man of large estates, whose rental had been greatly increased by a rise in the value of property lie possessed in the town of L -, and which lay contiguous to that of her husband. Two or three of the older inhabitants of the Hill had remembered him in his early days, when he was gay, high- spirited, hospitable, lavish. One observed that the only person in L whom he had admitted to his subsequent seclusion was Dr. Lloyd, who was then without practice, and whom he had employed as an assistant in certain chemical experiments". Here a gentleman struck into the conversation. He was a stranger to me and to L r-, a visitor to one "of the dwellers on A STRANGE STORY. 7S the Hill, who had asked leave to present him to its Queen as a great traveler and an accomplished antiquarian. Said this gentleman : "Sir' Philip Derval I tkiiGWlitra. I. met him in tin- East. Hi' was then still. I believe, very fund of chem- ical science; a clever, odd, philanthropfoal man; had .studied medicine, or at least, practised it ; was said to have made many marvelous eures. 1 became acquainted , with him in Aleppo. 11" had come to that town, not much frequented by English travelers, in order to inquire into the murder of two men, of whom one 'was his friend, and the other his countryman/' " This is interesting," said Mrs. Poyntz, dryly. " We who live on this innocent Hill all love stories pf crime — murder is the pleasantesl subject yon could have hit on. Pray give us the details." "So encouraged," said the traveler, good-humoredly,,*" I will not hesitate fo communicate the little I know. In Aleppo there had lived for some years a wan who was held by the natives in great reverence." He had the*reputation of extraordinary wisdom, but was diflioult of access; the lively imagination of the Orientals invested his character with the fascinations of fable; in short, Ilaroun of Aleppo was popularly considered as a magician. Wild stories were told of his powers, of his preter-naturaj age, of his hoarded treasures. Apart from such disputable titles to homage, there seemed no question, from all I heard, that his learning was considerable, Ids charities extensive, his manner of life- irreproach- ably ascetic. Tie appears to have resembled those Arabian sages of ihe Gothic age to whom modern science is largely indebted — a mystic enthusiast but. an earnest scholar. A wealthy but singular Englishman, long resilient in another part of the East, afflicted by some languishing disease, took a journey to Aleppo to consult this sage, who, among his other acquirements, was held to have dis- covered rare secrets in medicine — his countrymen said in 'charms.' One morning, not long after the Englishman's arrival, Ilaroun was found dead in his bed, aparently strangled, and the' Englishman,'' who lodged in another part of the town, bad disappeared ; but some of his clothes, and a crutch on which he habitually supported him- self, were found a few miles distant from Aleppo near the roadside. There appeared no doubt that he, too, had been murdered, but his corpse could* nol be discovered. Sir Philip Derval had been a loving disciple of this Sage of Aleppo, to whom he assured me he owed not only that knowledge of medicine which, by report, Sir Philip possessed, bul the insight into various truths of nature, on the promulgation of 'which it was evident Sir Philip cherished the ambition to found a philosophical celebrity for himself." "Of what description were those truths of nature?" I asked, (Tiincwhat sarcastically. ::'. 1 am unable to tell yon, for Sir Philip did n< I infi mi me, nor did 1 much care to ask, for what may be revered as truths in 74 . A STRANGE STOIIY. Asia are usually despised as dreams in Europe. To return to my story. Sir Philip bad been in Aleppo a little time before tbe mur- der; he lflfi the Englishman under the care of Haroun ; lie re- turned to Aleppo on bearing- the tragic exeats 1 have related, and was busied in collecting such evidence as could be gleaned, and instituting inquiries after our missing countryman at the time that 1 myself chanced to arrive in the city. 1 assisted in his researches, hut without avail. The assassins remained undiscovered. 1 do not myself doubt that they were mere vulgar robbers. Sir Philip had a darker suspicion, of which he made no secret to me, but as I confess that I thought the suspicion groundless, you will pardon if I do not repeat it. Whether, since I left the East, the Englishman's remains have been discovered, I know not. Very probably; for I understand that his heirs have got hold of what fortune lie left, less than was generally supposed, but it was report- ed that he bad buried great treasures, a rumor, however absurd, not altogether inconsistent with bis character." " What was his character? " asked Mrs. Poyntz. " One of evil and sinister repute, lie was regarded with terror by the attendants who had accompanied him to Aleppo. Bat he had lived in a very remote part of the East, little known to Europeans, and, from all I could learn, had there established an extraordinary power, strengthened by superstitious awe. lie was said to have studied deeply that knowledge which the philosophers of old called 'occult,' not, like the Sage of Aleppo, for benevolent, but for malignant ends. . He was accused of conferring with evil spirits, and tilling his barbaric court (for he lived in a kind of savage royalty) with charmers and sorcerers. I suspect, after all, thai lie was only, like myself, an ardent antiquarian, and cunningly ma#e use of the fear he inspired in order to secure his authority, and prosecute, in safety, researches into ancient sepulchres or temples. His great passion was, indeed, in excavating guch re- mains iii his neighborhood, with what result I know not, never having penetrated so far into regions infested by robbers and pesti- ferous with malaria, lie wore the Eastern dress, and always car- ried jewels about him. ['came to the conclusion that for the sake of these jewels he was murdered, perhaps by some of his own servants, who then at once buried his body, and kept their own secrets. He was old, very infirm; could never have got far from the town without assistance." " You have not yet told his name," said Mrs. Poyntz. " His name was (Jrayle." " Qraylc ! " exclaimed Mrs. Poyntz, dropping her work, " Louis Cray lei" " Yes, Louis (Jrayle. You could not have known him ? " » . " Known him ! No. But I have often heard my father speak of him. Such, then, was the tragic end of that strong, dark creature, A STRANGE STORY. ' 75 for whom, as a young girl in the nursery, 1 used to feel a Kind of feawfel, admiring interest '. " "It is your turn in narrate now," said the traveler. Ami we all drew closer round our hosiess, who remained silent some moments, bertyrow thoughtful, her work suspended. "Well," said she, at las(\ looking round us with a lofty air which seemed $alf defying; "force and courage are always fascinating, even when they arc quite in the wrong. 1 go with the world, because the world goes with me; if it did not — " Here she slopped for a moment, clenched the firm, white hand, and then scornfully waived it, left the sentence unfinished, and broke into another. .['Goingwitb the world, of course we must march over those who stand againsl it. But when one man stands single-handed against our march, we do not despise him; it is enough to crifsh. 1 am very glad 1 did uoi see Louis Grayle when 1 was a girl of sixteen."' Again she paused a moment — and resumed: "Louis Grayle was the only son of an usurer, infamous for the rapacity wiih which he had acquired enormous wealth. Old Grayle desired to rear his heir as a gentleman; sent him to Eton; hoys are always aristocratic ; bis birth was soon thrown in his teeth; he was fierce; he struck hoys bigger than himself — fought till he was half killed. My fattier was a: school with him J described him as a tiger-whelp. One day b< — still a fag — struck a sixth-form l>:>y. Sixth-form hoys do not fighl fags — they punish them. Louis Grayle was ordered to hold out his hand to the cane; lie received the blow, drew forth his school-boy knife and stabbed the punisher. After that he left Eton. 1 don't think he was publicly expelled — too mere a child for that honor — hut he was taken or senl away; educated with great eare under thi first masters at home : when he was of age lo enter the University, old Grayle was dead. Lbuis Was senl !,\ ids guardians to Cambridge, with acquirements far . the average of young men, and with unlimited command of money. My father was ai the same college, ami described' him — haughty, quarrelsome, reckless, han rave. Does that kind of creature interest you, my dears?" (appealing to dies.) •• La ! " said Miss Brabazon ; " a horrid usurer's son ! " " . r proverb says it is good to he horn with a silver spoon in one's mouth; so it is when one has one's own family cresl on it; hut when it is a spoon on which people r ni/.e their family crest-, ami cry out, ' Stolen from our plate-cl ■ it is that outlaws a babe in his cradle. 11 men ,: money are let* • scrupulous than ho; d are. ! ) Ip found, while at col plenty of well-born acquaintances willi iver from him father ha< He was wild ; : honors, hul my !■ 76 A STRANGE STORY. said that the tutors of the college declared that there were not six undergraduates in (lie university who knew as much hard and dry science as Wild Louis Grayle. He went into the world, no doubt, hoping to shine,- but his father's name was too notorious to admit the son into good society. The Polite World, it is true, does not examine a scutcheon with the nice eye of a herald,. nor look upon riches with the stately contempt of a stoic — still, the Police World has its family pride and its moral sentiment. It does not like to be cheated — I mean in money matters — and when the son of the man who has emptied its purse and foreclosed on its acres, rides by its club windows, hand on haunch, and head in the air, no lion has a scowl more awful, no hyaena a laugh more dread, than that same easy, good-tempered, tolerant, polite, well-bred world which is so pleasant an acquaintance, so languid a friend, and— so remorseless an enemy. In short, Louis Grayle claimed the right to be court- ed — he was shunned ; to be admired — he was loathed. Even his. old college acquaintances were shamed out of knowing him. Per- haps he could have lived through all this had he sought to glide quietly into position; but he wanted the tact of the well-bred, and strove to storm his way, not to steal it. Reduced for companions to needy parasites, he braved and he shocked all decorous opinion by that ostentation of excess which made Richelieus and Lauzuns the rage. But then Richelieus and Lauzuns were dukes ! ' He now very naturally took the Polite World into hate — gave it scorn fur scorn. He would ally himself with Democracy ; his wealth could not get him into a club, but it would bi.y him into parliament ; he could not be a Lauzun, nor, perhaps, a Mirabeau ; but he might be a Danton. He had plenty of knowledge and audacity, and with knowledge and audacity a good hater is sure to be-eloquent, Possibly, then, this poor Louis Grayle might have made a great, figure, left his -mark on his age and his name in history; but in contesting the borough which he was sure to carry, he had to face an opponent in a real fine gentleman whom his father had ruined, coql and high-bred, with a tongue like a rapier, a sneer like an adder. A quarrel of course; Louis Grayle -sent a challenge. The fine gentleman, known to be no coward (fine gentlemen never are), was at first disposed to refuse with contempt, ■ But Grayle had made himself the idol of the mob ; and at a word from Grayle the fine gentleman might have been ducked at a pump, or tossed in a blanket — that would have made him ridiculous — to be shot at is a trifle, to be laughed at is serious. He therefore condescended to accept the challenge, and my father was his second. " It was settled, of course, according to English custom, that both combatants should fire at the same time, and by signal. The antagonist fired at the right moment ; his ball grazed Louis Grayle's le. Louis Grayle had not fired. Lie now seemed to the seconds to take slow and deliberate aim. They called cut to him not to fire — they were rushing to prevent him — when the trigger A STRANGE STORY. 7? \ was pulled and his opponent fell dead on the field. The fight was, therefore, considered unfair.; Louis Grayle was tried for his life; he did not stand the trial in person. He escaped to the oontinenl ; hurried on to some distant, uncivilized lands; could not be traced; reappeared in England no more* The lawyer who conducted his defence pleaded skilfully. He argued that the delay in firing was not intentional, therefore not criminal — the efiecl of the stun which the wound it the temple had occasioned. The Judge was a gentleman, and Summed up the evidence so as to direct the jun- to a, verdict against the low wretch who had murdered a gentle- man. But the jurors were riol gentlemen, and (irayle's advi had of cours? excited their sympathy for a son of the people whom a gentleman had wantonly insulted — the verdict was man- slaughter. Bui the sentence emphatically marked the aggravated nature of the homicide — three years' imprisonment. ' Srayle eluded the prison, but he was a man disgraced, his ambition blasted, his career an outlaw's, and his age not yet twenty-three. He left the country. My father said thai he was supposed to have changed his name ; none knew whal had become of him. And so in his old age this creature, brilliant and daring, whom if born under better auspices we might now he all fawning on, cringing to — after living to old age,' \u\ one knows how — dies, murdered at Aleppo, no one, you Bay, knows by whom." " 1 saw some account of his death in the papers, about three years ago," said one of the parly, " hut the name was misspelled, and 1 had no idea that it was the same man who had fought the duel'which Mrs. Colonel Poyiltz has so graphically described. 1 have a vague recollection of the trial ; ii took place when I was a boy, more than forty years since. The affair made a stir at the time, but was soon forgotten." " Soon forgotten," said Mrs. Poyntz ; " ay. what is not ? Leave your place in the world for ten minutes, and when you come hack. somebody else has taken it ; hut when you leave the world for ' good, who remembers that you had ever a [dace even in the parish register ! " " Nevertheless," said 1, " a great poet has said, finely and truly, " ' The sun of Hom< r shines apon us still.' " '* But It does not shine upon Homer ; and learned folks tell me that we know no mure who and what Homer was, if there was ever a single Homer at all, or rather a whole herd of Homers, than we know about the man in the moon — if there he one man there, or a million. Now, my dear Miss Brabazon, it will he very kind in you to divert our thoughts into channels less gloomy. Some pretty French air l>r. Fenwh k, 1 have something to say to you." She drew me toward the window. "So Anne AshPeigh writes me word that 1 am not to mention your engagement Do you think it quite prudent to keep it a secret ( " 78 a strange; story. %;. " I do not see how prudence is concerned in keeping it secret one way or the'oiber — it is a mere mailer of feeling. Mostpeople wish to abridge, so far as they can, the time in which their private - arrangements are the topic of public gossip." ' ssip is sometimes the best securityjbr the due com- pletion of private arrangements. As long as a girl is not known to be engage;!, her betrothed must be prepared for rivals: Ari- be engagement and rivals are warned'eff." '• 1 fear no rivals." "Do you not ? Bol i man ! J suppose you will write to Lilian 1 " irtainly." " Do so, and constantly. By the way, Mrs. Ashleigh, before she went, asked me to send her back Lady Haughton's letter of in* vitation. What for? to show to you?" " Very likely. ■ Have you the letter still ? May T see it I " \. " Not just at present. When Lilian or Mrs. Ashleigh 'write -tS you, come and tell me how they like their visit, and what other guests form the ptrty." Therewith she turned away and conversed apart with the traveler. i' words disquieted me, and I felt that they were meant to do so. Wherefore, I could not guess. But. there is no language on earth which has more words with a double* meaning than that spoken by the Clever Woman, who is never so guarded as when sue appears to be frank. • As 1 walked home thoughtfully I was accosted by a young man, the son of one of the wealthiest merchants in the town. I had' tided him with success, some months before, in a rheumatic. i'vwv; lie and his family were much attached to me. " Ah, my dear Fenwick, I am so glad to see you ; I owe you an obligation of which you are not aware — an exceedingly pleasant traveling companion. I came with him to-day -from London, where L have been sight-seeing and holiday -making' tor the last fortnight." " 1 suppose you mean that you kindly bring me a patient ? " " No. only an admirer. I was staying at Fenton's Hotel. It so happened one day that I had left in the coffee-room your last work on the Vital Principle, which, by-t he-bye, the bookseller assures me is selling immensely among readers as non-professional as myself. (Joining into the coffee-room again I found a gentleman reading it. I claimed it politely; lie as politely tendered his excuse for taking it. # We made acquaintance on the spot. The next day we were intimate, lie expressed great interest and curiosity about your theory and your experiments. I told him I knew you. You may guess if 1 described you as less clever in your practice than you are in your writings. And, in short, he crime with me to L , partly to see our flourishing town, principally on my promise to introduce him to you. My mother, you know, has what she calls a dejeuner to'-morfow ; dejeuner and dance. You will be there ? " A STRANGE STORY. 79 "Thank you for reminding me of her invitation, I "Will avail myself of ir if I can. Your new friend will be presenl .' Who and whiat is he ? A medical student 1 " "No, a mere gentleman at ease;, but seems to have a good deal of generallinformation. Very young; apparently very rich; won- derfully good-looking. 1 am sure you will like him ; everybody must," • " It is quite enough to prepare me to like him, that he is a friend 01 yours." And SO we shook hands and parted. CHAPTER XXIII. It was late in the afternoon of the following day before I was able to join the party assembled at the merchant's house; it was a villa about two miles out of the town, pleasantly situated, amidst flower-gardens celebrated in the neighborhood for their be. The breakfast had been long over; the company was scattered over the lawn ; some seated under shady awnings; others gliding amidst parterres, in which all the glow of color took a glory yet more vivid under the Hush of a brilliant sunshine, and the .ripple Of a soft western breeze. Music, loud and lively, mingled with the laughter of happy children, who formed much the larger number of the parly. Standing at the' entrance of an arched trellis, that led from the hardier flowers of the lawn to a 'rare collection of tropical plants under -a lofty glass dome (connecting* as it were, the familiar Vege- tation of the North with that of the remotest East.) was a form that instantaneously caught ami fixed my gaze. The entrance of the arcade was covered with parasite creepers in prodigal luxuri- , of variegated, gorgeous tints — scarlet, golden, purple — and the form, an idealized picture of man's youth fresh from the hand of Nature, stood literally in a frame of blooms. Never have 1 seen human face so radiant as that young man's. Therc'.was in the aspect an iudeserihable something that literally dazzled. As one continued to gaze, it was with surprise one was forced to acknowledge thai in the features themselves there wai no faultless regularity ; nor was the young man's stature imposing — about the middle height. But the effect of the whole was not less transcendent. Larue eyes, unspeakably lustrous ; a most harmoni- ous coloring ; an expression 'of contagious animation and joyous- D68S; and the form itself so critically tine that the wedded Strength of its sinews was best shown in the lightness and grace of it* Movements. , 80 A STRANGE STORY. He was resfirtg one hand carelessly on the golden locks of a chikl thai had nestled itself against his knees, looking up in his lace in that silent loving Wonder with which children regard some- thing too strangely beau iful for noisy admiration ; he himself was conversing with the host, an old gray-haired, gouty man, propped on his crutch-stick, and listening with a look of mournful envy. To the wealth of the old man, all the flowers in that garden owed their renewed delight in the summer air and sun. Oh that his wealth could renew to himself one hour of the youth that stood beside him., lord, indeed, of Creation ; its splendor woven into his crown of beauty; its -enjoyments subject, to his sceptre of hope and gladness ! I was star) led by the hearty voice of ihe merchant's son : " Ah, my dear Fenwick, I .was afraid you would not come — you are late. There is the new friend of whom I spoke to you -last night ; let me now make you acquainted with him." He drew my arm is and led me up to the young man, where he stood under the arc-ling flowers, and whom he then introduced to me by the name of Margrave. Nothing could be more frankly cordial than Mr. Margrave's manner. In a few minutes I found myself conversing with him familiarly, as if we had been reared in the same home, and sported together on the same play-ground. His vein of talk w.its peculiar, and, careless, 'shifting from topic to topic, with a bright rapidity. He said that he lil ed the place ; proposed to stay in it some weeks ; asked my address, which I gave to him ; promised to call soon at an early hour, while my time was yet free from professional visits. I endeavored, when. I went away, to analyze to myself the fascination which this young stranger so notably exercised over all who approached him ; and it seemed to me, ever seeking to find material causes for all moral effects, that it arose from the contagious vitality of that rarest of all rare gifts in highly civil- ized circles — perfect health; that health which is in itself the most exquisite luxury, which, rinding happiness in the mere sense of existence, diffuses round it, like an atmosphere, the harmless hi- larity of its bright- animal being. Health, to the utmost perfec- tion, is seldom known after childhood ; health to the utmost can- not be enjoye'3 by those who overwork the brain, or admit the sure wear and tear of the passions. The creature 1 had just seen gave me the notion of youth in the golden age of the -poets — the youth of the careless Arcadian, before nymph or shepherdess had vexed his heart with a sigh. A STRAXGM STORY. 81 CHAPTER XXIV. The home I occupied at L was a quaint, old-fashioned .building — a comer house — one side, in which was the front en- trance, looked upon a street which, as t here were no shops in it. and it was no direct thoroughfare to the busy centres of thrown, was always quiet, and al some hours of the day almost deserted. The other side of the house fronted a lane; opposite to it was the long and high wall of the garden to a Young Ladies' Boarding School. My stables adjoined the house, abutting on a row of smaller build- ings, with little gardens before them chiefly occupied by mercantile clerks and retired tradesmen. By the lane there was .short and ready access both to the high turnpLe-road and to some pleasant walks through green meadows and along the banks of a river. This house I had inhabited since my arrival at L , and it had to me so many attractions, in a situation sufficiently centra: lo be convenient for patients, and yet free from noise, and favorable to ready outlet into the country for such foot or horse exercise as my professional a vocations would allow me to carve for myself out) of what the Latin poet cabs the '-solid mass of the day," that 1 had refused to change it for one better suited to my increased income; but it was not a house which Mrs. Ashleigh would have liked for Lilian. The main objection to it, in the eyes of the "genteel," was. that it had formerly belonged to a member of the healing pro- fession, who united the shop of an apothecary to the diploma of a surgeon ; but that shop had given the house a special attraction to me; for it had been built out on that side of the house which fronted the lane, occupying the greater portion of a small gravel court, fenced from the road by a low iron palisade, and separated from the body of the house itself by a short and narrow corridor that communicated with the entrance-hall. -This shop 1 turned into a rude study fur scientific experiments in which I generally spent some early hours of the morning, before my visiting patients began to arrive. 1 enjoyed the stillness of its separation from the rest of the house ; I enjoyed the glimpse of the great chestnut- trees which overtopped the wall of the school garden ; 1 enjoyed the ease with which, by opening the glazed sash-door, I could get out, if disposed for a short walk, into the pleasant Gelds; and so completely had I made tins sanctuary my own, that not only my manservant knew that 1 was never to be disturbed when in it, ex- cept by iff summons of a patient, but even the house-maid was forbidden to enter it with broom or duster except upon special in- vitation. The last thing At night before retirina^o rest, it was the man-servant's business to see that the sash-window was closed and 6 82 A STRANGE STORY. the gate to the iron palisade locked, but during the daytime' I so often went out of the house by that private way that the gate was then very seldom locked, nor the sash-door bolted within. In the town of L there was very little apprehension of house-robbe- ries — especially in the daylight — and certainly in this room, cut off from the main building, there was nothing to attract a vulgar cupidity. A few of the apothecary's shelves and cases still re- mained on the walls, with here and there a bottle of some chemical preparation for experiment. Two or three worm-eaten wooden chairs ; two or three shabby old tables ; an old walnut-tree bureau, without a lock, into which odds-and-ends were confusedly thrust, and sundry ugly-looking inventions of mechanical science, were as- suredly not the articles which a timid proprietor would guard with jealous care from the chances of robbery. It will be seen later why I have been thus prolix in description. The morning after I had met the young stranger by whom I had been so favorably im- pressed, I was up, as usual, a little before the sun, and long before any of my servants were astir. I went first into the room I have mentioned, and which I shall henceforth designate as my study, opened the window, unlocked the gate, and sauntered for some minutes up and down the silent lane skirting the opposite wall and overhung by the chestnut-trees, rich in the garniture of a glorious sutnnter; then, refreshed for work, I reentered my study, and was soon absorbed in the examination of that now well-known machine, which was then, to me at least, a novelty — invented, if I remember right, by Monsieur Dubois Reynolds, so distinguished by his re- searches into the mysteries of organic electricity. It is a wooden cylinder fixed against the edge of a table ; on the table two vessels filled with salt and water are so placed that, as you close your hands on the cylinder, the forefinger of each hand can drop into the water ; each of the vessels has a metallic plate, and communicates by wires with a galvanometer with its needle. Now the theory is, that if you clutch the cylinder firmly with the right hand, leaving the left perfectly passive, the needle in the galvanometer will move from west to south ; if, in like manner, you exert the left arm, leav- ing the right arm passive, the needle will deflect from west to mirth. Hence, it is argued that the electric current is induced through the agency of the nervous system, and that as human Will produces the muscular contraction requisite, so is it human Will that causes the deflection of the needle. I imagined that if this theory were substantiated' by experiment, the discovery might lead to Some sublime and unconjectured secrets of science. For human Will, thus actively effective on the electric current, and all matter, ani- mate or inanimate, having more or less of electricity, a vast field became opened to conjecture. By what series of patient experi- mental deduction'might not science arrive at the solution of pro- blems which the Newtonian law of gravitation does not suffice to solve ; and-- — But I must not suffer myself to be led away into A STRANGE STORT. 83 the vasrue world of guess by the vague reminiscences of a knowl- edge long since wholly neglected, or half forgotten. I was dissatisfied with ray experiment. The needle stirred, in- deed, but erratically, and not in directions which, according to the theory, should correspond to my movement. I was about to dis- miss the trial with some uncharitable contempt of the French philosopher's dogmas, when I heard a loud ring at my street door. While 1 paused to conjecture whether my servant was yet up to at- tend to the door, and which of my patients was the most likely to summon me at so unseasonable an hour, a shadow darkened my window. I looked up, and to my astonishment beheld the brilliant • face of Mr. Margrave. The sash to the door was already partially opened ; he raised it higher and walked into the room. " Was it you who rang at the street door, and. at this hour?" said I. "Yes; and observing after I had rung, that all the shutters were still closed, I felt ashamed of my own rash action, and made off rather than brave the reproachful face of some injured house- maid, robbed of her morning dreams. I turned down that pretty lane — lured by the green of the chestnut-trees — caught sight of you through the window, took courage, and here I am ! You forgive me.'" While thus speaking he continued to move along the lit- tered floor of the dingy room with the undulating restlessness of some wild animal in the confines of its den, and he now went on, in short fragmentary sentences, very slightly linked together, but smoothed, as it were, into harmony by a voice musical and fresh as a skylark's warble. " Morning dreams, indeed ! dreams that waste the life of such a morning. Rosy magnificence of a summer dawn ! Do you not pity the fool who prefers to lie abed, and to dream rather than to live? What ! and you, strong man, with those noble limbs, in this den ! Do you not long for a rush through the green of the fields, a bath in the blue of the river 1" Here he came to a pause, standing, still in the gray light of the growing day, with eyes whose joyous lustre forestalled the sun's, and lips which seemed to laugh even in repose. Bui presently those eyes, as quick as they were bright, glanced over the walls, the floor, the shelves, the phials, the mechanical in- ventions, and then rested full on my cylinder fixed to the table. He approached, examined it curiously, asked what it was I I ex- plained. To gratify him, I sat down, and renewed my experiment, with equally ill success. The needle, which should have moved from west to south, describing an angle of from 30 deg. to 40 or even 50 deg. only made a few troubled undecided oscillations. "Tut!" cried the young man, " I see what it is; you have a wound in your right hand." Thai was true. I had burned my hand a few days before in a chemical experiment, and the sore had not healed. " Well," said I. "and what does that mailer?" " Everything ; the least scratch in the skin of the hand produces 84 A STRANGE STORY. chemical actions on the electric current, independently of your will. Let me try." He took my place, and in a moment the needle in the galva- nometer responded to his grasp on the cylinder, exactly as the French philosopher had stated to be I he due result of the experiment. I was startled. " But how came you, Mr. Margrave, to be so ^ell acquainted with a scientific process little known, and but recently discovered V " I well acquainted ! not so. But I am fond of all experiments that relate to animal life. Electricity especially is full of interest." On that J drew him out (as I thought), and he talked volubly. I was amazed to find this young man. in whose brain I had conceived thought kept, one careless holiday, was evidently familiar with the physical sciences, and especially with chemistry, which was ray own study by predilection. But never had I met with a student in whom a knowledge so extensive was mixed up with notions so obsolete or so crotchety. In one sentence he showed that he had mastered some late discovery by Faraday or Liebig ; in the next sentence he was talking the wild fallacies of Cardan or Vn Hel- mont. I burst out laughing at some paradox about sympathetic powders, which he enounced as if it were a recognized truth. " Pray tell me," said I, "who was your master in physics, for a cleverer pupil never had a more crack-brained teacher." " No," lie answered, with his merry laugh, "it is not the teach- er's fault. I am a mere parrot ; just cry out a few scraps of learn- ing picked up here and there. But, however, I am fond of all researches into nature ; all guesses at her riddles. To tell you the truth, one reason why I have taken to you so heartily is not only that, your published work caught my fancy in the dip which I took into the contents (pardon me if I say dip, I never do more than dip into any book), but also because young * * * * tells me that which all whom I have met in this town confirm ; namely, that you are one of those few practical chemists who are at once exceedingly cautious and exceedingly bold — willing to. try every new experiment, but. submitting experiment to rigid tests. Well, I have an experiment running wild in this giddy head of mine, and I want, you, .some day when at leisure, to catch it, fix it as you have fixed that cylinder: make something of it. I am sure you can." " What is it ?" " Something akin to the theories in your work. You would re- plenish or preserve to each special constitution the special sub- stance that may fail to the equilibrium of its health. But you own that in a large proportion of cases, the best cure of disease is less to deal with the disease itself than to support and stimulate the whole system, so as to enable nature to cure the disease and re- store the impaired equilibrium by her own agencies. Thus, if you find "that in certain cases of nervous debility a substance like nitric .acid is efficacious, it is because the nitric, acid has a virtue in lock- A STRANGE STORY: 85 ing up, as it were, the nervous energy, that, is, preventing all undue waste. Again, in some eases of what is commonly called feverish cold, stimulants like ammonia assist nature itself to get rid of the disorder that oppresses its normal action ; and, on the same princi- ple, 1 apprehend, it is contended that a large average of human lives is saved in those hospitals which have adopted the supporting system of ample nourishment and alcoholic stimulants." "Your medical learning surprises me," said I, smiling, "and without pausing to notice where it deals somewhat superficially with disputable points in general, and my own theory in particular, 1 ask you for the deduction you draw from your premises." "It is simply tins: that to all animate bodies, however various, there must be one principle in common — the vital principle itself. What if there he one certain means of recruiting that principle .' and what if that secret can he discovered ?" " Pshaw ! The old illusion of the medieval empiri " Not so. But the medieval empirics were great discoverers. You sneer at Van llelmont, who sought in water the principle of all things; but Van llelmont discovered in his search those in- visible bodies called gases. Now the principle, of life must certainly be ascribed to a gas.* And whatever is a gas, chemistry should not despair of producing ! But I can argue no longer now — never can argue long at a stretch — we are wasting the morning ; and joy! the sun is up! See! Out! come out! out! and greet the great Life-giver face to face." I could not resist the young man's invitation. In a few minutes we were in the quiet lane under the glinting chestnut-trees. Margrave was chanting, low, a wild tune — words in a strange language. " What words are those! no European language, I think; for 1 know a little of most of the languages which are spoken in our quarter of the globe, at least by its more civilized races." " Civilized races ! What is civilization I Those words were uttered by men who founded empires when Europe itself was not civilized ! Hush, is it not a grand old air ? " and lifting his eyes towards the sun, he gave vent to a voice clear and deep as a mighty bell! The air was grand — the words had a sonorous swell that suited it, and they seemed to me jubilant and yet solemn. lie stopped abruptly, as a path from the lane had led us into the fields, already half-bathed in sunlight — dews glittering on the hedge- row*;. " Your song," said I, "would go well with the clash of cymbals or the peal of the organ. 1 am no judge of melody, but this strikes me as that of a religious hymn." " I compliment you oh the guess. It is a Persian fire-worship,- * According to the views we have mentioned, we must ascribe life to a gas, tli.n is, to an aeriform body. — Liebig, Organic Chemistry, Flavian's transla- tion, p. JO J. 86 A STRANGE STORY. per'8 hymn to the sun. The dialect is very different from modern Persian. Cyras the Great might have chanted it on his march upon Babylon." •• And where did you learn it 1 " "In Persia itself/' " Yon have traveled much — learned much — and are so young and so fresh. Is it an impertinent question if I ask whether your parents are yet living, or are you wholly lord of yourself? " " Thank you for the question — pray make my answer known in the rown. Parents I nave not — never had." " Never had parents ! " " Well, I ought rather to say that no parents ever owned me. I am a natural son — a vagabond — a nobody. When I came of age I received an anonymous letter, informing me that a sum — I need not say what — but more than enough for all I need, was lodged at an English banker's in my name ; that my mother had died in my infancy ; that my father was also dead — but recently ; that as I was a child of love, and he was unwilling that the secret of my birth should ever be traced, he had provided for me, not by will, but in his life, by a sum consigned to the trust of the friend who now wrote to me ; I need give myself no trouble to learn more ; faith, I never did. I am young, healthy, rich — yes, rich ! Now you know all, and you had better tell it, that I may win no man's courtesy and no maiden's love upon false pretences. I have not even a right, you see, to the name I bear. Hist ! let me catch that squirrel." With what a panther-like bound he sprang! The squirrel eluded his grasp and was up the oak-tree; in a moment he was up the oak-tree too. In amazement I saw him rising from bough to bough ; saw his bright eyes and glittering teeth through the green leaves; presently I heard the sharp, piteous cry of the squirrel — echoed by the youth's merry laugh — and down, through that maze of green, Margrave came, dropping on the grass and bounding up as mercury might have bounded with his wings at his heels. " i have caught him — what pretty brown eyes ! " .Suddenly the gay expression of his face changed to that of a savage; the squirrel had wrenched itself half loose and bitten him. The poor brute I In an instant his neck was wrung — its body dashed on the ground ; and that fair young creature, every feature quivering with rage, was stamping his foot on his victim again and again ! It was horrible. I caught him by the arm indignant- ly, lie turned round on me like a wild beast disturbed from its prey — his teeth set, his hand lifted, his eyes like balls of fire. " Shame! " said I, calmly ; " shame on you ! " He continued to gaze on me a moment or so — his eye glaring, his breath panting — and then, as if mastering himself with an in- voluntary effort, his arm dropped to his side, and he said, quite humbly, " I beg your pardon ; indeed I do. I was beside myself A STRANGE STORY. 87 for a moment ; 1 cannot bear pain ; " and ho looked in deep com- passion for himself at Ids wounded hand; " Venomous brute ! " And lie stamped again on the body of the squirrel, already crushed ohi of shape. 1 moved away in disgust, and walked on. But presently I felt my arm softly drawn aside, and a voice, . dulcet as the coo of a dove, stole its way into my ears. There was no resisting the charm with which this extraordinary mortal could fascinate even the hard and the cold; nor them, perhaps, the least. For as you see in extreme old age, when the heart seems to have shrunk into itself, and to leave, hut meagre and nipped affections for the nearesl relations, if grown up, the indurated egotism softens at once toward a playful child; or as you see in middle life some misanthrope, whose nature has been soured by wrong and sorrow, shrink IVom his own species, yet make friends with inferior races, and respond to the caress of a dog — so, for the worldling or the cynic, there was an attraction in the freshness of this joyous favorite of nature; — an attraction like that of a beau- tiful child, spoilt and wayward, or of a graceful animal, half docile, half tierce. ■• But," said I, with a smile, as I felt all displeasure gone, "such indulgence of passion for such a trifle is surely unworthy a student of philosophy." " Trifle," lie said dolorously. " But I tell you it is pain; pain is no trifle. I suffer. Look ! " 1 looked at the hand, which I took in mine. The bite no doubt had been sharp; but the hand that lay in my own was thai which the Greek sculptor gives to a gladiator; not large (the extremities are never large in a person whose strength comes from the just proportion of all the members, rather than the factitious and partial force which continued muscular exertion will give to one part of the frame, to the comparative weakening of the rest), but with the firm-knit joints, the solid fingers, the finished nails, the massive palm, the supple polished skin in which we recognize what nature designs the human hand to he — the skilled, swift, mighty doer of all those marvels which win Nature herself from the wilderness. " It is strange." said I. thoughtfully ; " but your susceptibility to suffering confirms my opinion, which is different from the popu- lar belief, viz : that pain is most acutely felt by those in whom the animal organization being perfect, ami the sense of vitality ex- quisitely keen, every injury or lesion finds the whole system rise, as it were, td repel the mischief and commit conscioui of it to all those nerves which are the sentinels to the garrison of life. Yet my theory is scarcely borne out by general fact. The Indian savages must have a health as perfect as yours ; a nervous system as fine. Witness their marvelous accuracy of ear. of eye. ■ ■nt, probably also Of tOUCh, yel they are indifferent to physical pain ; or must 1 mortify your pride by saying that they Lave some 8S A STRANGE STORY. moral quality defective in you which enables them to rise superior to it." "The Indian savages," said Margrave, sullenly, "have not a health as perfect as mine, and ill what you call vitality — the bliss ful consciousness of life — they are as sticks and stones compared to llio." "How do you know"? " " Because I have lived with them. It is a fallacy to suppose that I lie savage has a health superior to that of the civilized man — if the civilized man be but temperate, — and even if not, he has a stamina that cau resist for years what would destroy the savage in a month. As to their tine perceptions of sense, such do not come from exquisite equilibrium of system, but are hereditary attributes transmitted from race to race, and strengthened by training from infancy. But is a pointer stronger and healthier than a mastitf, hecar.se the pointer through long descent and early teaching creeps stealthily to his game and stands to it motionless f I will talk of this later ; now 1 suffer ! Pain, pain ! Has life any ill but pain 1 " It so happened that I had about me some roots of 'the white lily, which I meant, before returning home, to leave with a patient suffering from one of those acute local inflammations, in which that simple remedy often affords great relief. I cut up one of these roots, and bound the cooling leaves to the wounded hand with my handkerchief. "There," said I. "Fortunately, if you fc J el pain more sensibly than others, you will recover from it more quickly." And in a lew minutes my companion felt perfectly relieved, and poured out his gratitude with an extravagance of expression and a beaming delight of countenance which positively touched me. " I almost feel," said I," as I do when I have stilled an infant's wailing, and restored it smiling to its mother's breast." " You have done so. I am an infant, and Nature is my mother. Oh, to be restored to the full joy of life, the scent of wild flowers, the song of birds, and this air — summer air — summer air! " I know not why it was, but at that moment, looking at him and hearing him, I rejoiced that Lilian was not at L . " But I came out to bathe. Can we not bathe in that stream"'? " " No. You would derange the bandage round your hand ; and for all bodily ills, from the least to the greatest, there is nothing like leaving Nature at rest the moment we have hit on the means which assist her own efforts at cure." " I obey, then, but I do so love the water." '• You swim, of course ? " " Ask the fish if it swim. Ask the fish if it can escape me ! I delight to dive down — down; to plunge after the startled trout, as an otter does ; and then to get among those cool, fragrant reeds and bulrushes, or the forest of emerald weed which one sometimes finds waving under clear rivers. Man ! man ! could you live but A STRANGB STORY. 89 an hour of my life you would know how horrible a thing it is to die ! " '*Yet the dying do not think so; they pass away calm and smiling, as you will one day." "I — I! die one day — die!" and he sank on the grass, and buried his face among the herbage, sobbing aloud. Before I could get through half a dozen words, meant to soothe, he had once more hounded up, dashed I he tears from his eyes, and was again singing some wild, barbaric chant. I did not disturb him; in fact 1 sunn grew absorbed in my own meditations on the singular nature, so wayward, so impulsive, which had forced in- timacy on a man so grave and practical as myself. 1 was puzzled how to reconcile so passionate a childishness, so undisciplined a want of self-control, with an experience of mankind so extended by travel, with an education, desultory arid irregular indeed, but which must have been at sonic lime or other familiar- ized to severe reasonings and laborious studies. There seemed to be wanting in him that mysterious something which is needed to keep our faculties, however severally brilliant, harmoniously linked together — as the string by which a child mechanically binds the wild flowers it gathers, shaping them at choice into the garland or the chain. CHAPTER XXV. My intercourse with Margrave grew habitual and familiar. \'u- came to my house every morning before sunrise ; in the evenings we were again brought together: sometimes in the houses to which we were both invited, sometimes at his hotel, sometimes in my own home. Nothing more perplexed me than his aspect of extreme youth- fulness, contrasted with the extent of Ihe travels, which, if he were to be believed, had left lit lie of the known world unexplored. One day I asked him, bluntly, how old lie was. " How old do 1 look ? How old should you suppose me to be .'" " I should have guessed you to be about twenty, till you spoke of having come of age some years ago." " Is it a sign of longevity when a man looks much younger than he is?" "Conjoined with other signs, certainly' ! " " Have I the other signs >." "Yes, a magnificent, perhaps matchless, constitutional organ- ization, lint you have evaded my question as to your age ; was it an impertinence to put it?" " No. 1 came of age — let me see — three years ago." 90 A STRANGE STORY. " So long since 1 Is it possible ? I wish I had your secret ! " " Secret ! What secret ? " " The secret of preserving so much of boyish freshness in' the wear and tear of man-like passions and man-like thoughts." " You are still young yourself — under forty 1 " " Oh yes ! some years under forty." " And Nature gave you a much grander frame and a much finer symmetry of feature than she gave to me." " " Pood ! pooh ! You have the beauty that must charm the eyes of woman, and that beauty in its sunny forenoon of youth. Happy man ! if you love — and wish to be sure that you are loved again." " What you call love — the unhealthy sentiment, the feverish folly — I left behind me, I think forever, when — •" " Ay, indeed — when 1" " I came of^ge !" " Hoary cynic ! and you despise love ! So did I once. Your time may come." " I think not. Does any animal, except man, love its fellow she-animal as man loves woman ? " " As man loves woman ? No, I suppose not." " And why should the subject-animals be wiser than their king 1 But, to return — you would like to have my youth and my careless enjoyment of youth ] " " Can you ask — who would not 1 " Margrave looked at me for a m6ment with unusual seriousness, and then, in the abrupt changes common to his capricious temperament, began to sing softly one of his barbaric chants— a chant different from any I had heard him sing before — made either by the modulation of his voice or the nature of the tune — so sweet that, little as music generally affected mej this thrilled to my very heart's core. I drew closer and closer to him, and murmured when he paused, " Is not that a love-song?" "No," said he, "it is the song by which the serpent-charmer charms the serpent." CHAPTER XXVI. Increased intimacy with my new acquaintance did not diminish the charm of his society, though it brought to light some startling defects, both in his mental and moral organization. I have before said that his knowledge, though it had swept over a wide circuit and dipped into curious, unfrequented recesses, was desultory, and erratic. It certainly was not that knowledge, sustained and as- piring, which the poet assures is " the wing on which we mount to heaven." So, in his faculties themselves there were singular A STRANGE STORY. 91 inequalities, ov contradictions. His power of memory in some things seemed prodigious ; bul when examined it was seldom ac- curate; it could apprehend, bul did not hold together with a binding grasp, what metaphysicians call "complex ideas.*' He thus seemed unable to put it to any steadfast purpose in the sciences of which it retained, vaguely and loosely, many recondite principles. For the sublime and beautiful in literature he had no taste whatever. A passionate lover of nature, his imagination had no response to the arts by which nature is expressed or idealized ; wholly unaffected by poetry or painting. Of the fine arts, music alone attracted and pleased him. His conversation was often imminently suggestive, touching on much, whether in books or mankind, that set one thinking; but I never remember him to have uttered any of those lofty or tender sentiments winch form the connecting links between youth and genius. For if poets sing to the young, and the young hail their own interpreters in poets, it is because the tendency of both is to idolize the realities of life, finding everywhere in the Real a something that is noble or fair, and making the fair yet fairer, and the noble nobler still. In Margrave's character there seemed no special vices, no special virtues ; but a wonderful vivacity, joybusness, animal good- humor. He was singularly temperate, having a dislike to wine, perhaps from that purity of taste which belongs to health abso- lutely perfect. No healthful child likes alcohols, no animal, except man, prefers wine to water. But his main moral defect seemed tome, in a want of sympathy, even where he professed attachment. He who could feel so acutely for himself, be unmanned at the bite of a squirrel, and sob at the thought that he should one day die. was as callous to the sufferings of another as a deer who deserts and butts from him a wounded comrade. I give an instance of this hardness of heart where I should have leasl expected to find it in him. He had met and joined me as I was walking to visit a patient on the outskirts of the town, when we fell in with a group of children, just let loose for an hour or two from their day-school. Some of these children joyously recognized him as having played with them at their homes; they ran up to him, and he seemed as glad as themselves at the meeting. He suffered them to drag him along with them, and became as merry and sportive as the youngest of the troop. "Well," said I, laughing, " if you are going to play at Leap-frog, pray don't let it be on the. high road, or you will be run over by carts and draymen; see thai meadow just in front to the left — off witli you there ! " "With all my heart." cried Margrave, "while you pay your visit. Conic along, boys." 92 A STRANGE STORY. A little urchin, not above six years old, but who was lame, began to cry, he could not run — he should be left behind. Margrave stopped. " Climb on my shoulder, little one, and I'll be your horse." The child dried its tears, and delightfully obeyed., " Certainly," said I, to myself, " Margrave, after all, must have a nature as gentle as it is simple. What other- .young man, so courted by all the allurements that steal innocence from pleasure, would stop in the thoroughfares to play with children ? " The thought had scarcely passed through my mind when I heard a scream of agony. Margrave had leaped the railing that divided the meadow from the road, and in so doing the poor child, perched on his shoulder, had, perhaps from surprise or fright, loosened its hold, and fallen heavily. Its cries were piteous. Mar- grave clapped his hands to his ears — uttered an exclamation of anger — and not even stopping to lift up the boy, or examine what the hurt was, called to the other children to come on, and was soon rolling with them on the grass, and pelting thjem with daisies. When I came up, oidy one child remained by the suf- ferer — its little brother, a year older than itself. The child had fallen on its arm, which was not broken, but violently contused. The pain must have been intense. I carried the child to its home, and had to remain there some time. I did not see Margrave till the next morning, when he then called. I felt so indignant that I could scarcely speak to him. When at last I rebuked him for his inhumanity, he seemed surprised ; with difficulty remembered the circumstance, and then merely said — as if it were the most natural confession in the world — " Oh, nothing so discordant as a child's wail. 1 hate discords. I am pleased with the company of children ; but they must be children who laugh and play. Well! why do you look at me in that way 1 What have I said to shock you ! " " Shock me — you shock manhood itself! Go ; I caa't talk to you now. I am busy." But he did not go ; and his voice was so sweet, and his ways so winning, that disgust insensibly melted into that sort of for- giveness one accords (let me repeat the illustration) to the deer that forsakes its comrade. The poor thing knows no better. And what a graceful, beautiful thing this w T as ! The fascination — I can give it no other name — which Margrave exercised was not confined to me ; it was universal — old, young, high, low, man, woman, child, all felt it. Never in Low Town had stranger, even the most distinguished by fame, met with a reception so cordial — so flattering. His frank confession that he was a natural son, far from being to his injury, served to interest people more in him, and to prevent all those inquiries in regard to his connections and antecedents, which would otherwise have been afloat. To be sure, he was evidently rich ; at least he had plenty A STRANOE STORY. 93 of money. He lived in the best rooms of the principal hotel ; was very hospitable; entertained the families with whom he had grown intimate; made them bring their children — music and dancing after dinner. Among the houses in which lie had established familiar acquaintance was that of the mayor of the town, who had bought Dr. Lloyd's collection of subjects in natural history. To thai collection the mayor had added largely by a very recent purchase. He had arranged these various specimens, which his last acquisitions had enriched by the interesting carcases of an elephant and a hippopotamus, in a large wooden building con- tiguous to his dwelling,and which had been constructed by a former rietor (a retired foxdmnter) as a riding house. And being a man who much affected the diffusion of knowledge, he proposed to open this museum to the admiration of the general public, and at his death So bequeath it to the Athenaeum or Literary Institute of his native town. Margrave; seconded by the influence of the mayor's daughters, had scarcely been three days at L before he had persuaded this excellent and public-spirited functionary to inaugurate the opening of his museum by the papular ceremony of a, hall. A temporary corridor should unite the drawing- rooms, which were on the ground-floor, with the building that contained the collection ; and thus the fete would he elevated above the frivolous character of a fashionable amusement, and consecrated to the solemnization of an intellectual institute. Dazzled by the brilliancy of this idea, the mayor announced his intention to give a ball that should include the surrounding neigh- borhood, and he worthy, in all expensive respects, of the dignity of himself and the occasion. A night had been fixed for the ball — a night that became, memorable indeed to me! The entertain- ment was anticipated with a lively interest, in which even the Hill condescended to share. The Hill did not much patronize mayors in general; but when a mayor gaTKG a ball for a purpose so patri- otic, and on a scale so splendid, the Hill literally acknowledged that Commerce was, on the whole, a thing which the Eminence might, now and then, condescend to acknowledge without abso- lutely derogating from the rank which Providence had assigned to it among the High Places of earth. Accordingly, the Hill was permitted by its Queen to honor the first magistrate of Low Town by a promise to attend his ball. Now, as ibis festivity had ori- ginated in the suggestion of Margrave, so, by a natural association of ideas, every one, in talking of the ball, talked also of .Margrave. The Hill had at first affected to ignore a stranger whose debut had been made in the mercantile circle of Low Town. But the Queen of the 1 Hill now said, sententiously, " TftiB new man in a few days has become a Celebrity. It is the policy of the 'Hill to adopt Celebrities, if the Celebrities pay respect to the Proprieties. Dr. Fen wick is requested to procure Mr. Margrave the advantage of being known to the Hill." \ 94 A STRANGE STORY. I found it somewhat difficult to persuade Margrave to accept the Hill's condescending overture. He seemed to have a dislike to all societies pretending to aristocratic distinction — a dislike expressed with a fierceness so unwonted that it made one suppose he had at some time or other been subjected to mortification by the supercilious airs that blow upon heights so elevated. How- ever, he yielded to my instances, and accompanied me one evening to Mrs. Poyntz's house. The Hill was encamped there for the occasion. Mrs. Poyntz was exceedingly civil to him, and after a few commonplace speeches, hearing that he was fond of music, consigned him to the caressing care of Miss Brabazon, who was at the head of the musical department in the Queen of the Hill's administration. Mrs. Poyntz retired to her favorite seat near the window, invi- ting me to sit beside her; and while she knitted in silence, in silence my eye glanced toward Margrave in the midst of the group assembled round the piano. Whether he was in more than usually high spirits, or whether he was actuated by a malign and impish desire to upset the es- tablished laws of decorum by which the gayeties of the Hill were habitually subdued into a serene and somewhat pensive pleasant- ness, I know not; but it was not many minutes before the orderly aspect of the place was grotesquely changed. Miss Brabazon having come to the close of a complicated and dreary sonata, I heard Margrave abruptly ask her if she could play the Tarantella, that famous Xeopolitan air which is founded on the legendary belief that the bite of the tarantula excites an irre- sistible desire to dance. On that high-bred spinster's confession that she was ignorant of the air, and had not even heard of the legend, Margrave said, "Let me play it to you, with variations of my own." Miss Brabazon graciously yielded her place at the instrument. Margrave seated himself — there was great curiosity to hear his performance. Margrave's fingers rushed over the keys, and there was a general start, the prelude was so unlike any known combination of harmonious sounds. Then he began a chant — song I can scarcely call it — words certainly not in Italian, perhaps in some uncivilized tongue, perhaps in impromptu gib- berish. And the torture of the instrument now commenced in good earnest : it shrieked, it groaned : wilder and noisier. Bee- thoven's ^Storm, roused by the fell touch of a German pianist, were mild in comparison; and the mighty voice, dominating the an- guish of the cracking keys, had the, full diapason of a chorus. Certainly I amuno judge of music, but to my ear the discord was terrific — to the ears of better informed amateurs it seemed ravish- ing. All were spell-bound ; even Mrs. Poyntz paused from her knitting, as the Fates -paused from their web at the lyre of Or- pheus. To this breathless delight, however, soon succeeded a general desire for movement. To my amazement, I beheld these A STRANGE STORY. 95 former matrons and sober fathers of families forming themselves, into a dance, turbulent as a children's hall at Christmas. And when, suddenly desisting from his music, Margrave started up caught the skeleton band of lean Miss: Brabazon, and whirled bar into the centre of the dance, I could have fancied myself at a witch's sabhat. My eye turned in scandalized alarm toward Mrs. Poyntz. That great creature seemed as much astounded as ni) self. Her eyes were fixed on the scene in a stare of positive stupor. For the first time, no doubt, in her life, she was over- come, deposed, dethroned. The awe of her presence was literally whirled away. The dance ceased as suddenly as it had begun. Darting from the galvanized mummy whom he had selected as his partner, Margrave shot to Mrs. Poyntz's side, and said, "Ten. thousand pardons for quitting you so soon, hut the clock warns me that I have an engagement elsewhere." In another moment he was gone. The dance halted, people seemed slowly returning to their senses, looking at each other bashfully and ashamed. "I'could not help it, dear," sighed Miss Brabazon at last, sink- ing into a chair, and casting her deprecating, fainting eyes upon the hostess. "It is witchcraft," said fat Mrs. Bruce, wiping her forehead.. " Witchcraft ! " echoed Mrs. Poyntz, "it does inded look like it. An amazing and portentous exhibition of animal spirits, and not to be endured by the Proprieties. Where on earth can that young savage have come from ? " " From savage lands," said I. " So he says." " Do not bring him here again," said Mrs. Poyntz. " He would soon turn the Hill topsy-turvy. But how charming! I should like to see more of him," she added in an under voice, "if he would call on me some morning, and not in the presence of those for whose Proprieties 1 am responsible. Jane must be out in her ride will; the Colonel." Margrave never again attended the patrician festivities of rhe Hill. Imitations were poured upon him, especially by Miss Brabazon and the other old maids, but in vain. " Those people," said he, " are too tame and civilized for me ; and so few young persons among them. Even that girl Jane is only young on the surface; inside, as old as the World or her mother. 1 like youth, real youth — 1 am young, 1 am young ! " And indeed, I observed that he would attach himself to some young person, often to some child, as if with cordial and special favor, yet Air not more than an hour or so, never distinguishing them by the same preference when he next met them. I made the remark to him, in rebuke of his fickleness, one evening when he had found nie at work on my ambitious book, reducing to rule and measure the Laws of Nature. " It is not fickleness," said he, " it is necessity." 96 a strAnge story. " Necessity ! Explain yourself." " I seek 1o find what I have not found," said he; " it is my ne- cessity to seek it, and among the young- ; and disappointed in one, I turn to the other. Necessity again. But find it as last I must." " I suppose you mean what the young usually seek in the young; and if, as you said the other day, you have left love behind you, you now wander back; to re-find it." " Tush ! If I may judge by the talk of young fools, love may be found every day by him who looks oilt for it, What I seek is among the rarest of all discoveries. You might aid me to find it, and in so doing aid yourself to a knowledge far beyond all that your formal experiments can bestow." " Prove your words, and command my services," said I, smiling somewhat disdainfully. "You told me that you had examined into the alleged phenomena of animal magnetism, and proved some persons who pretend to the gift which the Scotojb call second sight to be bungling imposters. You were right. I have seen the clairvoy- ants who drive their trade in this town ; a common gipsy could beat them in their own calling. But your experience must have shown you that there are certain temperaments in which the gift of the Pythoness is stored, unknown to the possessor, undetected by the common observer ; but the signs of which should he as ap- parent to the modem physiologist as they were to the ancient priest." " 1 at least, as a physiologist, am ignorant of the signs — what are they ? " " I should despair of making you comprehend them by mere verbal description. I could guide your observation to distinguish them unerringly were living subjects before us. But not one in a million has the gift to an extent available for the purposes to which the wise would apply it. Many have imperfect glimpses ; few, few indeed, the unveiled, lucent sight. They who have but the imper- fect glimpses mislead and dupe the minds that consult them, be- cause, being sometimes marvelously right* they excite a credulous belief in their general accuracy ; and as they are but translators of dreams in their own brain, their assurances are no more to be trusted than are- the dreams of commonplace sleepers. But where the gift exists to perfection, he who knows how to direct and to profit by it should be able to discover all that he desires to know for the guidance and preservation of his own life, lie will be fore- warned of every danger, forearmed in the means by which danger is avoided. For the eye of the true Pythoness matter has no ob- struction, space no confines, time no measurement." " My dear Margrave, you may well say that creatures so gifted are rare; and for my part, I would as soon search for a unicorn as, to use your affected expression, for a Pythoness." " Nevertheless, whenever there come across the course of your A STRANG E STORi'. 97 practice some young creature to whom all the evil of the world is as yet unknown, to whom the ordinary cares and duties of the world arc strange and unwelcome : who from the earliest dawn of reason has loved to sit apart and to muse ; before whose eves visions pass unsolicited ; who converses with those who are not dwellers on the earth, and beholds in the space landscapes which the earth does not reflect — " "Margrave, Margrave ! of whom do you speak ! " " Whose frame, though exquisitely sensitive, has still a health. and a soundness in which you recognize no disease; whose mind has a truthfulness that you know cannot deceive you, and a simple intelligence too clear to deceive itself; who is moved to a myslcri- ous degree by all the varying aspects of external nature — inno- cently joyous, or unaccountably sad; — when, 1 say, such n being comes across your experience, inform me; and the chances are that the true Pythoness is found." I had listened with vague terror, and with more than one ex- clamation of amazement, to descriptions which brought Lilian Ash- leigh before me ; and 1 now sat nude, bewildered, breathless, gazing upon Margrave, and rejoicing that at least Lilian he had never seen. He returned my own gaze steadily, searchingly, and then, break- ing into a slight laugh, resumed : " You call my word 'Pythoness' affected. I know of no other. My recollections of classic anecdote and history are confused and dim ; but somewhere I have read or heard that the priests of Delphi were accustomed to travel chiefly into Thrace or Thessaly in search of the virgins who might fitly administer their oracles, and that the oracles gradually ceased in repute as the priests he- came unable to discover the organization requisite in the priestesses, and supplied by craft and imposture, or by such imperfect frag- mentary developments as belong now to professional clairvoyants, the gifts which Nature failed to afford. Indeed, the demand was one that must have rapidly exhausted so limited a supply. The constant strain upon faculties so wearing to the vital functions in their relentless exercise, under the artful stimulants by which the priests heightened their power, was mortal, and no Pythoness ever retained her life more than three years from the time that her gift was elaborately trained and developed." " Pooh ! I know of no classical authority for the details you so confidently site. Perhaps some such legions may be found in the Alexandrian PlatonistB; but those mystics are no authority on such a subject. After all," I added, recovering from my first sur- prise or awe, "the Delphic oracles were proverbially ambiguous, ami their responses might be read either way; a proof thai the priests dictated the verses, though their arts on the unhappy priestess might throw her into real convulsions, and the real con- vulsions, not the false gift, might shorten her life. Enough of such .7 98 A STRANGE STORY. idle subjects ! Yet no ! one question more. If you found your Pythoness, what then ? " " What then 1 Why, through her aid I might discover the pro- cess of an experiment which your practical Science would assist me to complete." " 'Tell me of what kind is your experiment ; and precisely be- cause such little science as I possess is exclusively practical, I may assist you without the help of the Pythoness." Margrave was silent for some minutes, passing his hand several times across his forehead, which was a frequent gesture of his, and then rising, he answered, in listless accents : " I cannot say more now, my brain is fatigued ; and you are not yet in the right mood to hear me. By the way, how close and re- served you are with me." "How so? " " You never told me that you were engaged to be married. You leave me, who thought to have won your friendship, to hear what concerns you so intimately from a comparative stranger." "Who told you?" " That woman with eyes that pry and lips that scheme, to whose house you took me." " Mrs. Poyntz ! Is it possible ?. When 1 " " This afternoon. I met her in the street — she stopped me, and after some unmeaning talk, asked ' if I had seen you lately ; if I did not find you very absent and distracted ; no wonder — you were in love. The young lady was away on a visit, and wooed by a dangerous rival.' " " Wooed by a dangerous rival ! " " Very rich, good looking, young. Do you fear him ? You turn pale." " I do not fear, except so far as he who loves truly, loves humbly, and fears not that another may be preferred, but that an- other may be worthier of preference than himself. But that Mrs. Poyntz should tell you all this does amaze me. Did she mention the name of the young lady ] " " Yes ; Lilian Ashleigh. Henceforth be more frank with me. Who knows 1 I may help you. Adieu ! " CHAPTER XXVII. When Margrave had gone, I glanced at the clock — not yet nine. I resolved to go at once to Mrs. Poyntz. It was not an evening on which she received, but doubtless she would see me. She owed me an explanation. How thus carelessly divulge a secret she had been enjoined to keep ? and this rival of whom I was ignorant ? A S'niANOE STORY. 99 It Was no longer a matter of wonder that Margrave should have described Lilian's peculiar idiosyncrasies in his sketch of his fabulous Pythoness. Doubtless, Mrs. Poyntz had, with unpardon- able levity of indiscretion, revealed all of which she disapproved in my choice. But for what object ? Was this her boasted friend- ship for me I Was it consistent with the regard she professed for Mrs. Ashleigh and Lilian.' Occupied by these perplexed and indignant thoughts, 1 arrived at Mrs. Povntz's house, and was admitted to her presence. She was fortunately alone ; her daughter and "he Colonel had gone to some party on the Hill. 1 would not take the hand she held out to me on entrance; seated myself in stern displeasure, and proceeded at once to inquire it she had really betrayed to Mr. Margrave the secret of my engagement to Lilian. " Yes, Allen IVmvick ; I have this day told not only Mr. Mar- grave, but every person I met who is likely to tell it to some ono else, the secrel of your engagement to Lilian Ashleigh. I never promised to conceal it ; on the contrary, I wrote word to Anno Ashleigh that I would therein act as my own judgment counseled me. 1 think my words to you were that ' public gossip was sonic- times the best security for the fulfilment of private engagements.' " "Do you mean that Mrs. or Miss Ashleigh recoils from the engagement with me, and that I should meanly compel them to fulfil it by calling in the public to censure them — if — if — oh, madam, this is worldly artifice indeed ! " " Be good enough to listen to me quietly. I have never yet showed you the letter to Mrs. Ashleigh, written by Lady Haugh- ton, and delivered by Mr. Vigors. That letter I will now show to yon; hut before doing so I must enter into a preliminary explanation. Lady Haughton is one of those women who love power, and cannot obtain it except through wealth and station — by her own intellect never obtain it. When her husband died she was reduced from an income of twelve thousand a year to a joint- ure of twelve hundred, hut with the exclusive guardianship of a young sou, a minor, and adequate allowances for the charge, she continued, therefore, to preVide as mistress over the establishments in town and country; still had the administration i<( her son's Ith and rank. She stinted his education in order to maintain her ascendency over him. He became a brainless prodigal — spendthrift alike of health and fortune. Alarmed, she saw thai probably he would die young and a beggar; his only hope of re- form was in marriage. She reluctantly resolved to marry him to a penniless, well-born, sob-minded yonng lady whom she knew she could control : just before this marriage was to take place he was killed by a fall from his horse. The Haughton estate passed io his cousin, the luckiest young man alive; the same Ashleigh Sum- ner who had already succeeded, in default of male issue, to poor Gilbert Ashleigh's landed possessions. Over this young man Lady 100 A STRAXGB STORY. Haughton could expect no influence. She -would be a stranger in his house. But she had a niece ! Mr. Vigors assured her the niece was beautiful. And if the niece could become Mrs. Ashleigh Sumner, then Lady Haughton would be a less unimportant No- body in the world, because she would still have her nearest relation in a Somebody at Haughton Park. Mr. Vigors had his own pompous reasons for approving an alliance which he might help to bring about. The first step towards that alliance was obviously to bring into reciprocal attractions the natural charms of the young lady and the acquired merits of the young gentleman. Mr. Vigors could easily induce his ward to pay a visit to Lady Haughton, and Lady Haughton had only to extend her invitations to her niece ; hence the letter to Mrs. Ashleigh, of which Mr. Vigors was the bearer, and hence my advice to you, of which you can now under- stand the motive. Since you thought Lilian Ashleigh the only woman you could love, and since I thought there were other women in the world who might do as well for Ashleigh Sumner, it seemed to me fair for all parties that Lilian should not go to Lady Haughton's in ignorance of the sentiments with which she had inspired you. A girl can seldom be sure that she loves until she is sure that she is loved. And now," added Mrs. Poyutz, rising and walking across the room to her bureau — " now I will show you Lady Haughton's invitation to Mrs. Ashleigh. Here it is ! " i ran my eye over the letter which she thrust into my hand, re- suming her knitwork while I read/ The letter was short, couched in conventional terms of hollow affection. The writer blamed herself for having so long neglected her brother's widow and child ; her heart had been wrapped up too much in the son she had lost ; that loss had made her turn to the ties of blood still left to her; she had heard much of Lilian from their common friend, Mr. Vigors ; she longed to embrace so charming a niece. Then followed the invitation and the postscript. The postscript ran thus, so far as I can remember : " Whatever my own grief at my irreparable bereavement, I am no egotist, I keep my sorrow to myself. You will fild some pleasant guests at my house, among others our joint connection, young Ashleigh Sumner." " Woman's postscripts are proverbial for their significance," said Mrs. Poyntz, when I had concluded the letter and laid it on the table ; " and if I did not at once show you this hypocritical effusion, it was simply because at the name of Ashleigh Sumner its object became transparent, not perhaps to poor Anne Ashleigh nor to innocent Lilian, but to my knowledge of the parties concerned, and to that shrewd intelligence which you derive partly from nature, partly from the insight into life winch a true physician cannot fail to acquire. And if I know anything of you, you would have romantically said, had you seen the letter at first, and under- A STRANGE STORY. 101 stood its covert intention' ' Let me not shackle the choice of the woman I love, and to whom an alliance so coveted in the eyes of the world might, if she were left free, be proffered.' " " I should not have gathered from the postscript all that you see in it, but had its purport been so suggested to me, you are right, I should have so said. Well, and as Mr. Margrave tells me thai you informed him that I have a rival, I am now to conclude that the rival is Mr. Ashleigh Sumner ! " " Has not Mrs. Ashleigh or Lilian mentioned him in writing to you ? " " Yes, both ; Lilian very slightly ; Mrs. Ashleigh with some praise, as a young man of high character, and verv courteous to her." " Yet, though I asked you to come and tell mo who were the guests at Lady Ilaughton's you uever did so." " Pardon me ; but of the guests I thought nothing, and letters addressed to my heart seemed to me too sacred to talk about. And Ashleigh Sumner then courts Lilian ! How do you know V " I know everything that concerns me ; and here the explana- tion is simple. My aunt, Lady Delafield, is staying with Lady Haughton. Lady Delafield is one of the women of fashion who shine by their own light; Lady Haughton shines by borrowed light, and borrows every ray she can find." ''And Lady Delafield writes you word — " " That Ashleigh Sumner is caught by Lilian's beauty." " And Lilian herself — " " Women like Lady Delafield do not readily believe that any girl would refuse Ashleigh Sumner ; considered in himself, he is steady and good-looking ; considered as owner of Kirby Hall and Haughton Park, he has, in The eyes of any sensible mother, the virtues ofCato, and the beauty of Antinous." I pressed my hand to my heart — close to my heart, lay a letter from Lilian — and there was no word in that letter which showed that her heart was gone from mine. I shook my head gently, and smiled in confiding triumph. • Mrs. Poyntz surveyed me with a bent brow and a compressed lip. " I understand your smile," she said, ironically. " Very likely Lilian may be quite untouched by this young man's admiration, but Anne Ashleigh may be dazzled by so brilliant a prospect for her daughter. And, in short, I thought it desirable to let your gement be publicly known throughout the town to-day ; that information will travel — it will reach Ashleigh Sumner through Mr. Vigors, or -others in this neighborhood, with whom I know that he corresponds. It will bring affairs to a crisis, and before it may be too bite. I think it well that Ashleigh Sumner should leave that house ; if he leaves it for good so much the better. And, 102 • A STRANGE STORY. perhaps, the sooner Lilian returns to L the lighter your own heart will be." •" And for those reasons you have published the secret of — " -" Your engagement 1 Yes. Prepare to be congratulated wher- ever you go. And now, if you hear either from mother or daugh- ter, that Ashleigh Sumner has proposed, and been, let us say, re- fused, I do not doubt that in the pride of your heart you will come and tell me." " Rely upon it, I will ; but before I take my leave allow me to ask why you described to a young man like Mr. Margrave — whose wild and strange humors you have witnessed and not approved — any of those traits of character in Miss Ashleigh which distinguish her from other girls of her age 1" " I % You mistake. I said nothing to him of her character. I mentioned her name, and said she was beautiful, that was all." " Nay, you said that she was fond of musing, of solitude ; that in her fancies she believed in the reality of visions which might flit before her eyes as they flit before the eyes of all imaginative dreamers." " Not a word did I say to Mr. Margrave of such peculiarities in Lilian ; not a word more than what I have told you, on my honor ! " Still incredulous, but disguising my incredulity with that con- venient smile by which we accomplish so much of the polite dis- simulation indispensable to the decencies of civilized life, 1 took my departure, returned home, and wrote to Lilian. CHAPTER XXVIII. Tub conversation with Mrs. Poyntz left my mind restles.i and disquieted. I had no doubt, indeed, of Lilian's truth ; but could I be sure that the attentions of a young man with advantages of fortune so brilliant, would not force on Jier thoughts the contrast of the humbler lot and the duller walk of life in which she had ac- cepted as companion a man removed from her romantic youth less by disparity of years than by gravity of pursuits 1 And would my suit now be as welcomed as it had been by a mother even so un- worldly as Mrs. Ashleigh 1 Why, too, should both mother and daughter have left me so unprepared to hear that I had a rival '.' Why not have implied some conso ing assurance that such rivalry need cause me no alarm. Lilian's letters, it is true, touched but little on any of the persons round her — they were filled with the outpourings of an ingenuous heart, colored by the glow of a golden fancy. They were written as if in the wide world we two stood apart, alone, consecrated from the crowd by the love that, in link- A STRANGE STORY. 103 ing us together, liad hallowed each to each. But Mrs. Ashleigh's letters were more general and diffusive, detailed the habits of the household, sketched the guests, intimated continued fear of Lady Haiighton, but had said nothing more of Mr. Ashleigh Sumner than J bad repeated to Mrs. Poyntz. However, in my letter to Lilian 1 related the intelligence that had reached me, and im- patiently I awaited her reply. Three days after the interview with Mrs. Poyntz, and two days before the long-anticipated event of the mayor's ball, I was sum- moned to attend a nobleman who had lately been added to my list of patients, and whose residence was about twelve miles from L-j . The nearest way was through Sir Philip Derval's park. 1 went on horseback, and proposed to. stop on the way to impure after the steward, whom I had seen but once since his tit. and t bat- was two days after it. when be called himself at my bouse to thank me for my attendance, and to declare that he was quite recovered. As I rode somewhat fast through Sir P. Derval's park, I came, however, upon the steward, just in front of the house. 1 reined in my horse and accosted him. lie looked very cheerful. " Sir," said he, in a whisper, " I have heard from Sir Philip; his letter is dated since — since — my good woman told you what I 'saw ; — well, since then. So that it must have been all a delusion of mine, as yon told her. And yet, well — well — we will not talk of it, doctor. But 1 hope you have kept the secret. Sir Philip would not like to bear of it if he comes back." " Your secret is quite safe wi h me. But is Sir Philip likely to come back ? " " I hope so, doctor. His letter is dated Paris, and that's nearer home than he has been for many years ; and — but bless me — some one is coming out of the bouse 1 a young gentleman ! Who can it be / " I looked, and to my surprise I saw Margrave descending the stately stairs that led from the front door. The steward turned toward him, and I mechanically followed, for I was curious to know what bad brought Margrave to the bouse of the long-absent traveler. It was easily explained/ Mr. Margrave had heard at L- much of the pictures and internal decorations of the mansion. He had by dint of coaxing (be said, with his enchanting laugh), per- suaded the old housekeeper to show him the rooms. " It is against Sir Philip's positive orders to show the house to any stranger, sir ; and the housekeeper has done very wrong," said the steward. " Pray don't scold her. I dare say Sir Philip would not have refused me a permission he might not give to every idle sight-seer. Fellow-travelers bave a freemasonry with each other ; and I have been much in the same far countries as himself. I heard of him 104 A STRANGE STORY. there, and could tell you more about him, I dare say, than you know yourself." " You, sir ! pray do then." " The next time I come," said Margrave, gaily ; and with a nod to me he glided off through the trees of the neighboring grove, along the winding foot-path that led to the lodge. "A very cool gentleman," muttered the steward; "but what pleasant ways he bas ! You seem to know him, sir. Who is he. — may I ask 1" " Mr. Margrave. A visitor at L , and he has been a great traveler, as he says ; perhaps he met Sir Philip abroad." " I must go and hear what he said to Mrs. Gates ; excuse jne, sir, but I am so anxious about Sir Philip." " If it be not too great a favor, may I be allowed the same privilege granted to Mr. Margrave? To judge by the outside of the house, the inside must be worth seeing ; still, if it be against Sir Philip's positive orders — " " His orders were not to let the Court become a show-house — to admit none without my consent; but I should be ungrateful indeed, doctor, if I refused that consent to you." I tied my horse to the rusty gate of the terrace walk, and fol- lowed the steward up the broad stairs of the terrace. The great doors were unlocked. We entered a lofty hall with a domed ceil- ing ; at the back of the hall the grand staircase ascended by a double flight. The design was undoubtedly Vanbrugh's, an archi- tect who, beyond all others, sought the effect of grandeur less in space than in proportion. But Vanbrugh's designs need the relief of costume and movement, and the forms of a more pompous genera- tion, in the bravery of velvets and laces, glancing amid those gilded columns, or descending with stately tread those broad palatial stairs. His halls and chambers are so made for festival and throng, that they become like deserted theatres, inexpressibly desolate, as we miss the glitter of the lamps and the movement of the actors. The housekeeper had now appeared ; a quiet, timid old woman. She excused herself for admitting Margrave, not very intelligibly. It was plain to see that she had, in truth, been unable to resist what the steward termed his "pleasant ways.'' As if to escape from a scolding, she talked volubly all the time, bustling nervously through the rooms, along which I followed her guidance with a hushed footstep. The principal apartments were on the ground-floor, or rather a floor raised some ten or fifteen feet above the ground ; they had not been modernized since the dare in which they were built. Hangings of faded silk ; tables of rare marble, and mouldered guilding; comfortless chairs at drill against the walls ; pictures, of which connoisseurs alone could estimate the value, darkened by dust or blistered by sun and damp, made a general character of discomfort. On not one room, on not one nook, still lingered some old smile of Home. A STKAXGE STORY. 105 Meanwhile I gathered from the housekeeper's rambling an- swers to questions put to lier by the steward, as I moved on, glancing at the pictures, thai Margrave's visit that day was not his first, lie had been over the house twice before : his ostensible excuse that he was an amateur in pictures (though as I have before observed! for that department of art he had no taste) ; hut each time he had talked much of Sir Philip, lie said Ilia . though not personally known to him. be had resided in the same towns abroad, and bad friends equally intimate with Sir Philip; hut when the steward inquired if the visitor had given any information as to the absentee, it became very clear that Margrave bad been rather asking questions than volunteering intelligence. < We had now come to the end of the state apartments, the last of which was a library. "And," said the old woman, " I don't wonder the gentleman knew Sir Philip, for he seemed a scholar, and looked very hard over the hooks, especially those old ones by the fire-place, which Sir Philip, Heaven bless him, was always pouring over." Mechanically I turned to the Shelves by the fire-place, and ex- amined the volumes ranged in tflat department. I found they contained the works of those writers whom we may class together under the title of mystics — Porphyry and P;ofinus : Swedenborg and Behmen; Sandivogius, Van Helmont, Paracelsus, Cardan. Works, too, were tbefe, by writers less renowned, on astrology, geomancy, chiromancy, etc. 1 began to understand among \ class of authors Margrave had picked up the strange notions with which he was apt to interpolate the doctrines of practical phil pby. '•I suppose this library was Sir Philip's usual sitting-room .'" said I. "No, sir ; he seldom sat here. This was his study :*' and the old woman opened a small door, masked by false book hacks. I followed berinto a roam of moderate size, and evidently of much earlier date than the rest of the house. " It is the only room of an older mansion," said the steward, in answer to my remarks. "I have heard it was loft standing on account of the chimney-piece. But there is a Latin inscription which will tel! you all about it. I don't know Latin myself," said the steward. The chimney-piece reached to the ceiling. The frieze of the lower part rested on rude stone caryatides ; in the upper part were oak panels very curiously carved in the geometrical designs fa- vored by the taste prevalent in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, hut different from any I had ever seen in drawings of old houses. And 1 was not quite unlearned in such matters, for my poor father was a passionate antiquarian in all that relates to medieval art. The design in the oak panels was composed of triangles in- terlaced with varied ingenuity, and inclosed in circular hands in- Boribed with the sians of the Zodiac. 106 A STRANGE STORY. On the stone frieze supported by the caryatide, immediately un- der the wood-work, was inserted a metal plate, on which was writ- ten, in Latin, a few lines to the effect that, "in this room Simon Forman, the seeker of hidden truth, taking refuge from unjust per- secution, made those discoveries in nature which he committed, for the benefit of a wiser age, to the charge of his protector and patron, the worshipful Sir Miles Derval, knight." Forman ! The name was not quite unfamiliar to me ; but it was not without an effort that my memory enabled me to assign it to one of the most notorious of those astrologers or soothsasers whom the superstition of an earlier age alternately persecuted and honored. The general character of the room was more cheerfuld than the statelier chambers I had hitherto passed through, for it had still the look of habitation. The arm-chair by the tire-placo ; the knee- hole writing table beside it ; the sofa near the recess of a large bay-window, with book-prop and candlestick screwed to its back; maps, coiled in their cylinders, ranged under the cornice; low strong safes skirting two sides of the room, and apparently intend- ed to hold papers and title deeds; seals carefully affixed to their jealous locks. Placed on the top of these old-fashioned receptacles were articles familiar to modern use; a fowling-piece here; fish- ing rods there; two or three simple flower vases ; a pile of music- books ; a box of crayons. All in this room seemed to speak of residence and ownership — of the idiosyncrasies of a single man, it is true, but of a man of one's own time — a country gentleman of plain habits but not uncultivated tastes. I moved to the window ; it opened by a sash upon a large balcony, within which a wooden stair wound to a little garden, not visible in front of the house, surrounded by a thick grove of evergreens, through which one broad vista was cut; and that vis- ta was closed by a view of the mausoleum. I stepped out into the garden — a patch of sward with a foun- tain in the centre — and parterres, now more filled with weeds than flowers. At the left corner, was a tall wooden summer- house or pavilion; its door wide open. "Oh, thatl? where Sir Philip used to study many a long summer's night," said the steward. " What ! in that damp pavilion ? " " It was a pretty place enough then, sir ; but it is very old. They say as old as the room you have just left." " Indeed, I must look at it then." The walls of this summer- house had once been painted in the arabesques of the llennaissance period ; but the figures now were scarcely traceable. The wood- work had started in some places, and the sunbeams stole through the chinks and played on the floor, which was formed from old tiles quaintly tesselated and in triangular patterns, similar to those I had A STRANGE STORY. 107 remarked in the chimney-piece. The room in the pavilion was large, furnished with old worm-eaten tables and settles. " It was not only here that Sir Philip studied, but sometimes in the room above," said the steward. "How do you gel to the room above ? Oh, I see; a staircase in the au.ule." I ascended the stairs with some caution, for they were crooked and decayed ; and on entering the room above, comprehended, at once why Sir Philip had favored it. The cornice of the ceiling rested on pilasters, within which compartments were formed into open, unclosed arches, surrounded by a railed balcony. Through these arches, on three sides of the room, the eye commanded a magnificenl extent of prospect. ( )n the fourth side the view was hounded by the mausoleum. In this room was a large telescope, and on stepping into the balcony, 1 saw that a winding stair mounted thence to a platform on the top of the pavilion — perhaps once used as an observatory by Fonnan himself. "The gentleman who was here to-day was very much pleased with this look-out, sir," said the housekeeper. "Who could not bel I suppose Sir Philip has a taste for astronomy." " I dare say, sir." said the steward, looking grave ; " he likes most out-of-the-way things." The position of the sun now warned me that my time pre and that I should have to ride fast to reach my new patient at the hour appointed. 1 therefore hastened back to my horse, and spurred on, wondering whether in that chain of association which so subtly links our pursuits in manhood to our impressions in child- hood, it was the Latin inscription on the chimney-piece that had originally biased Sir Philip Dcrval's literary taste toward the mystic jargon of the books at which I had contemptuously glanced. CHAPTER XXIX. I Din not see Margrave the following day. but the next morning, a little after sunrise, he walked into my study, according to his ordinary habit. "So you know something about Sir Philip Derval ?" said I. " What sort of a man is he ! " •• Hateful! " cried Margrave; and then checking himself, hurst out into his merry laugh. "Just like my exaggerations! I am not acquainted with anything to his prejudice. 1 came across his 108 A STKANGE STORY. Track once or twice in the East. Travelers are always apt to be jealous of each other." " You are a strange compound of cynicism and credulity. But I should have fancied that you and Sir Philip would have been con- genial spirits, when I found among his favorite books Vau Helmont and Paracelsus. Perhaps you, too, study Swedenborg; or, worse, still, Ptolemy and Lilly % " " Astrologers 1 No ! They deal with the future ! I live for the day, only I wish the day never had a morrow ! " " Have you not, then, that vagne desire for the something be- yond; that not unhappy, but grand discontent with the limits of the immediate Present, from which Man takes his passion for im- provement and progress, and from which some sentimental philoso- phers have deduced an argument in favor of his destined im- mortality % " "•Eh !" said Margrave with as vacant a si are as that of a peasant whom one has addressed in Hebrew. " What farrago of words is/ this 1 I do not comprehend you." "With your natural abilities," I asked with interest, " do you never feel a desire for fame ? " " Fame ! Certainly not. 1 cannot even understand it ! " " Well, then, would you have no pleasure in the thought that you had rendered a service to humanity 'I " Margrave looked bewildered. After a moment's pause he took from the table a piece of bread that chanced to be there, opened the window, and threw the crumbs into the lane. The sparrows gathered round the crumbs. "Now," said Margrave, "the sparrows come to that dull pave- ment for the bread that recruits their lives in this world; do you believe that one sparrow would be silly enough to fly to a house- top for the sake of some benefit to other sparrows, or -to be chirrupped about after he was dead \ I care for science as the sparrow cares for bread; it may help me to something good for my own life, and as for fame and humanity, I care for them as a sparrow cares for the general interest and posthumous approbation of sparrows ! " " Margrave ! there is one thing in you that perplexes me more than all else — human puzzle as you are — in your many eccentrici- Mess and self-contradictions." " What is that one thing in me most perplexing ? " " This; that in your enjoyment of nature you have all the fresh- ness of a child, but when you speak of man and his objects in the world, you talk in the vein of some worn-out and hoary cynic. At such times, were I td close my eyes, I should say to myself, 'What weary old man is venting his spleen against the ambition which has failed, and the love which has forsaken him .' ' Outwardly the very personation of youth, and revelling like a butterfly in the warmth of the sun and the tints of the herbage, why have you A STRANGE STORY. 109 none of the golden passions of the young? their bright dreams, of some impossible love — their sublime enthusiasm for some unat- tainable glory '. The sentiment you have just clothed in your parable of the sparrows is too mean and too gloomy to be genuine at your age. Misanthropy is among the dismal fallacies of gray- beards. No man. till man's energies leave him, can divorce him- self from the bonds of our social kind." " Our kind — your kind, possibly! But I — " He swept his hand over his brow, and resumed, in strange, absent) and wistful accents; " 1 wonder what it is that is wanting here, and of which at moments 1 have a dim reminiscence." Again he panned, and gazing on me, said, with more appearance of friendly interest than 1 had ever before remarked on his countenance. " You are nut Looking well. ■ Despite your great physical strength, you suller like your own sickly patients." "True! 1 suffer ai this moment, bul not from bodily pain," "You have some cause of mental disquietude \ " " Whb in this world has not ! " " I never have." "Because you own you have never loved ; and certainly you never seem to v:\vt' for any one but yourself; and in yourself you find an unbroken, sunny holiday — high spirits, youth, health, beauty, wealth. Happy boy ! " At that moment my heart was heavy within me. Margrave resumed : "Among the secrets which your knowledge places at the com- mand of your art. what would you give for one which would enable you to defy and deride a rival where you place your affections, which could lock lo jourself and imperiously control the will of the being whom you desire to fascinate, by an influence para- mount, transcendent I " "Love has that secret." said 1, " and love alone." ••A power stronger than love can suspend, can change, love itself. But if love lie the object or dream of your life, love is the rosy associate of youth and beauty. Beauty soon fades, youth soon departs. What if in nature were the means by which beauty and youth can be fixed into blooming duration — means that can arrest the course, nay, repair the effects of time on the elements that make up the human frame!" " Silly boy ! Have the Rosicruclans bequeathed to you a pre- scription for the elixir of life? " "If I had the prescription 1 should not ask your aid to dis- oover its ingredient ■.lid is i; on the hope of that notable discovery you 1 studied chemistry, electricity, and magnetism'/ Again I say, si!i\ boy ! " Margrave did not heed my reply. His fate was overcast, gloomy, troubled. 110 A STRANGE STJDRY. " That the vital principle is a gas," said he, abruptly, " I am fully convinced. Can that gas be the one which combines caloric With oxygen 1 " " Phosoxygen ? Sir Humphrey Davy demonstrates that gas not to be, as "Lavoisier supposed, caloric, but light, combined with' oxygen, and he suggests, not indeed that it is the vital principle itself, but the pabulum of life to organic beings."* "Does he?" said Margrave, his face clearing up. " Possibly, possibly, then, here we approach the great secret of secrets. Look you, Allen Fenwick, I promise to secure to you unfailing security from all the jealous fears that now torture your heart ; if you care for that fame which to me is not worth the scent of a flower, the balm of a breeze. I will impart to you a knowledge which, in the hands of ambition, would dwarf into commonplace the boasted wonders of recognized science. I will do all this, if, in return, but for one month you will give yourself up to my gui- dance in whatever experiments 1 ask, no matter how wild they may seem to you." " My dear Margrave, I reject your bribes as I would reject the moon and the stars which a child might offer to me in exchange for a toy. But I may give the child its toy ibr nothing, and I may test your experiments for nothing some day when I have leisure." I did not hear Margrave's answer, for at that moment my ser- vant entered with letters. Lilian's hand ! Tremblingly, breath- lessly, I broke the seal. Such a loving, bright, happy letter ; SO sweet in its gentle chiding of ray wrongful fears. It was implied rather than said that Ashleigh Sumner bad proposed, and been refused. He bad now left the house. Lilian and her mother were coming back; in a few days we should meet. In this letter were enclosed a few lines from Mrs. Ashleigh. She was more explicit as to my rival than Lilian had been. If no allusion to his atten- tions had been made to me before, it was from delicate considera- tion for myself. Mrs. Ashleigh said that " the young man had heard from L of our engagement, and — disbelieved it ; " but, as Mrs. Poyntz had so shrewdly predicted, hurried at once to ihe avowal of his own attachment, and the offer of his own hand. On Lilian's refusal his pride had been deeply mortified. He had gone away manifestly in more anger than sorrow. " Lady Delarield, dear Margaret Poyntz's aunt, had been most kind in trying to soothe Lady Haughton's disappointment, which was rudely ex- pressed — so rudely," added Mrs. Ashleigh, " that it gives us an excuse to leave sooner than had been proposed — which I am very glad of. Lady Delarield feels much for Mr. Sumner; has invited him to visit her at a place she has near Worthing ; she leaves to- morrow in order to receive him ; promises To reconcile him to our rejection, which, as he was my poor Gilbert's heir, and was very * See Sir Humphrey Davy cm Heat, Light, and the (Jouibiuatious of Light. A STRANGE STORY. Ill friendly at first, -would be a great relief to my mind. Lilian is well, and so happy at the thoughts of comin|| back." When I lifted my eyes from these letters I was as a new man. and the earth seemed a new earth. 1 felt as if I had realized Margray'e'9 idle dreams — as if youth could never fade, love could never grow eold. "You care for no secrets of mine at this moment," said Mar- grave, abruptly. " Secrets," I murmured ; "none now are worth knowing. I am loved — I am loved! " "I trifle my time," said Margrave' ; and as my eyes met his, 1 saw there a look 1 had never seen in those eyes before — sinister, wrathful, menacing, lie turned away, went out through the sash door of the study; and as he passed toward the fields under the luxuriant chestnut-trees, I heard his musical barbaric chant — the son- by which the serpent-charmer charms the serpent ; — sweet, so sweet — the very birds on the houghs hushed their carol as if to listen. CHAPTER XXX. I CALLED that day on Mrs. Poyntz, and communicated to her the prospect of the glad news 1 had received. She was still at work on the everlasting knitting, her firm lingers linking mesh into mesh as she listened; and when 1 had done, she laid her skein deliberately down, and said, in her favorite charac- teristic formula, "So at lasi !— that is settled!" She rose and paced the room as men are apt to do in reflection — women rarely need such movement to aid their thoughts — her eyes were fixed on the floor, and one hand was lightly pressed on the palm of the other, the gesture of a musing reasoner who is ap- proaching the close of a difficult calculation. At length she paused, fronting me, and said, dryly, " Accept my congratulations — life smiles on you now — guard that smile, and When we meet next may we be even tinner friends than we are now ! " " When we meet next — that will be to-night — you surely go to the mayor's great ball. All the Hill descends to Low Town to- night." '•No; we are obliged to leave L this afternoon — in less than two hours we shall be gone — a family engagement. We may be weeks away ; you will excuse me, then, if I take leave of you so unceremonipusly. Stay; a motherly word of caution. That friend of yours, Mr. Margrave. Moderate your intimacy with 112 A STRANGE STORY. him, and especially after you are married. There is in that stranger, of whom sofirrle is known, a something: which I cannot comprehend— a something that captivates, and yet revolts. I find him disturbing my thoughts, perplexing my conjectures, haunting my fancies — I, plain woman of the world ! Lilian is imagina- tive: beware of her imagination, even when sure of her heart. Beware of Margrave. The sooner he quits L , the better, believe me, for your peace of mind. Adieu, I must prepare for our journey." " That woman," muttered I, on quitting her house. " seems to have some strange spite against my poor Lilian, ever seeking to rouse my own distrust of that exquisite nature which has just given me such proof of its truth. And yet — and yet — is that woman so wrong here 1 True! Margrave with his wild notions, his strange beauty ! — true — true — he might dangerously encour- age that turn for the mystic and visionary which distrtfeses me in Lilian. Lilian should not know him. How induce him to leave L ? Ah — those experiments on which he asks my assistance! I might commence them when he comes again, and then invent some reason to send him for completer tests to the famous chemists of Paris or Berlin." CHAPTER XXXI. . It is the night of the mayor's ball ! The guests are assembling fast; county families twelve miles round have been invited, as well as the principal families of the town. All, before pro ceding to the room set. apart for the dance, moved in procession through, the museum — homage to science before pleasure ! The building was brilliantly lighted, and the effect was striking, perhaps because singular and grotesque. There, amidst stands of flowers and evergreens, lit up with colored lamps, were grouped the dead representatives of races all inferior — some deadly — to man. The fancy* of the ladies had been permitted to decorate and arrange these types of the animal world. The, tiger glared with glass eyes from amidst artificial reeds and herbage, as from his native jungle; the grizzly white bear peered from a mimic iceberg. There, in front, stood the sage elephant, facing a hideous hippopotamus ; while an anaconda twined its long spire round the stem of some tropical tree in zinc. In glass cases, brought into full light by festooned lamps, were dreaded specimens of the reptile race — scorpion and vampire, and cobra capella, with insects of gorgeous hues, not a few of them with venomed stings. But the chief boast of the collection was in the varieties of the genus simia — baboons and apes, chimpanzees, with their human i A .STRANGE STORY. 113 / visage, mockeries of man, from tlie dwarf monkey* perched on boughs lopped from the mayor's shrubberies, to the formidable orang outang leaning on his huge club. Everyone expressed to the mayor delight, and to each other antipathy, for this, uriwonted and somewhal gBastiy, though in- structive addition to the revels of a ball-room. Margrave, of* course, was there, and seemingly quite at home, gliding from group to group ofgayly-dressed ladies, and bril iant with a childish eagerness to play off the showman. Many of these grim fellow-creatures he declared he had seen, played, or fought with. He had something Irne or false to say ahont each. In his high spirits he contrived to make the tiger move, and imitated the hiss of the terrible anaconda. All that he did had its grace, its charm ; and the buzz of admiration and the flatten! > of ladies' eyes followed him wherever he moved. However, there was a general feeing of relief when, the mayor led the way from the museum into ihe hall-room. In provincial panics guests arrive pretty much within the same hour, and so feW who had once paid their respects to the apes and serpents, the hippopotamus and the tiger, were disposed to repeal the visit-, thai long before eleven o'clock the museum was as free from ihe intrusion of human life as the wilderness in which its dead occu- s had been bom. 1 had gone my round through Ihe rooms, and, little disposed to he social, had crept into the retreat of a window-niche, pleased to think myself screened hy its draperies — not ihat I was melan- choly, far from it — I'm- Ihe letter I had received that morning from Lilian had raised my whole being into a sovereignty of happiness beyond the reach of the young pleasure-hunters whose voices laughter blended with that vulgar music. To read her letter again I h d stolen to my nook — and BOW, sure I ha! none saw me kiss it. I replaced it in my bosom. I looked through the parted curtain : !l e room was comparatively empty: hut there, through ihe open folding doors, 1 saw the gay crowd gathered round the dancers; and there again, at right angles, a vista along the corridor afforded a glimpse of Ihe great elephant in the deserted museum. Presently I heard, close heside me. my host's voice. " Here's a cool corner, a pleasant sofa, you can have it alf to yourself; what an honor to receive you under my roof, and on this interesting occasion ! Yes. as you say. great changes are here since you left us. Society is much improved. I must look about and find some persons to introduce to you. Clever! oh, J know your tastes. We have a wonderful man — a new doctor. Carries all before him — a very high character, too — good old family — greatly looked up to, even apart from his profession. Dogmatic a little — a Sir Oracle — 'Lets no dog bark;' you remember the quo- 3 114 A STRANGE STORY. tation— Shakspeare. Where on earth is he ? My dear Sir Philip, I am sure you wou'd enjoy his conversation." Sir Philip ! Could it. be Sir Philip Derval to whom the mayor Was giving a flattering, yet scarcely propitiatory description of myself? Curiosity, combined with a sense of propriety, in not keeping myself an unsuspected listener : I emerged from the curtain, hul silently, and reached the centre of tne room before the mayor perceived me. He then came up to me eagerly, linked Ids arm in mine, and leading me to a gentleman seated on a sofa close by the window I had quitted, said : " Doctor, I must present you to Sir Philip Derval, just return- ed to England, and not six hours in L . If you would like to see the museum again, Sir Philip, the doctor, I'm sure, will ac- company you." " No, I thank you ; it is painful to me at present to see, even under your roof, the collection which my poor dear friend, Dr. Lloyd, was so proudly beginning to form when I left these parts." '• Ay, Sir Philip — Dr. Lloyd was a worthy man in his way, but sadly duped in his latter years : took tu mesmerism, only think. But our young doctor here showed him up, I can tell you." • Sir Philip, wins had acknowledged my lirst introduction to his acquaintance by the quiel courtesy with which a we 1-bred man goes through a ceremony which custom enables him to endure with equal ease and indifference, now evinced by a slight cha of manner how little the mayor's reference to my dispute with Dr. Lloyd advanced me in his good opinion. He turned away with a bow more formal than his iirst one. and said, calmly, " I regret to hear that a man so simple-minded and so sensitive as Dr. Lloyd should have provoked an encounter in which I can well conceive him to have been worsted. With your leave, Mr. Mayor. I will look into your ball-room. I may perhaps find there some old acquaintances.." He walked toward tiie dancers, and the mayor, linking his arm in mine, followed close behind, saying, in his loud, hearty tones, "Come along, you too. Dr. Fenwick, my girls are here ; you have not spoken to them yet." Sir Philip who was then half-way across the room, turned round abruptly, and looking me full in the face, said, " Fenwick, is your name Fenwick ? — Allen Fenwick ? " " That is my name, Sir Philip." " Then permit me to shake you by the hand ; you are no stranger, and no mere acquaintance to me. Mr. Mayor, we will look into your ball-room later ; do not let us keep you now from your other guests." The mayor, not in the least offended by being thus summarily dismissed, smiled, walked on, and was soon lost among the crowd. Sir Philip, still retaining my baud, reseated himself on the sofa, and I took my place by his side. The room was still de- A STRANGE JTI'ORY. Ii5 scried : row and then a straggler from the ball-ro»m looked in for amomenj., and then sauntered back to the centra place of attrac- rion. • "I am trying to guess," said I, "bow my name should be known to you. Possibly you may. in some visit to the ] akes, have known my father?" "No; I know none of your nanii* but .yourself — if, indeed, as iVloubt not, you are the Allen Fenwiek to whom I owe no small obligation. You were a medical student at Edinburgh in the year * * * I" "Yes." "So ! At that time there was also at Edinburgh a 3 oang man, named Richard Strahan. tie lodged in a fourth flat in the old town." " 1 remember him very well." "And yon remember, also, that a fire broke out at night in the house in which he lodged; that when it was discovered there seemed no hope of saving him. The flames wrapped the lower part of the house; the staircase had given way. A boy, scarcely so old as himself, was the only human being in the crowd who dared to scale the ladder, thai even then scarcely reached the windows from which the smoke rolled in volumes; that hoy pene- trated into the room — found I he inmate almost insensible — rallied, supported, dragged him to the window — got him on the ladder — saved his life then-»-and his life later, by nursing with a woman's tenderness, through the fever caused by terror and excitement, the fellow creature he had rescued by a man's daring. The name of that gallant student was Allen Fenwiek, and Richard Strahan is my nearest living relation. Are we friends now ?" i answered confusedly. 1 had almost forgotten the circum- stance referred to- Richard Strahan had not been one of my moie intimate companions, and 1 had never seen nor heard of him since leaving eollege- 1 inquired what had become of him. "lie is a, the Scotch bar," said Sir Philip, "and of course without practice. I understand that be has fair average abilities, but no application. If ] am rightly informed he is, however, a thoroughly honorable, upright man, ami of an affectionate and grateful disposition." " I can answer for all you have said in his praise. lie had the qualities you name too deeply rooted in youth to have lost them now." Sir Philip remained for some moments in a musing silence. — And I took advantage of that silence to examine him with more minute attention than 1 bail done before, much as the first sight of 1 im had struck" me. lie was somewhat below the goommon height So delicately formed that you might ca 1 him rati er-fragile than slight. But in his carriage and air there was a remarkable dignity. His counte- 1]6 A STRANGE STORY. nance was at direct variance with his figure. For as delicacy was the attribute of the last, so power was fcably the character- istic of the first, He looked full the age tin' steward had ascribed tebina — about forty-eight ; at a superficial glance, more ; for his hair was prematurely white — not gray, but white as snow. But his eyebrows were still jet black, and his eyes, equally dark, were serenely bright, His fqrehesd was .magnificent ; lofty and spa-. cious, and with only one slight wrinkle between the brows. IHs complexion was sunburned, shewing no sign of weak health. The outline of his lips was that which I have often remarked in men accustomed to great dangers, and contracting in such dangers the habit of self-reliance ; firm and quiet, compressed without an effort. And the power of this very noble countenance was not intimidating, not aggressive ; it was mild — it was benignant, A man oppressed by some formidable tyranny, ami despairing to find a protector, would, on seeing that face, have said, " Here is one who can protect me, and who will ! " Sir Philip was the first to break the silence. " I bftve sa many relations scattered over England that fortu- nately not one of them can venture to calculate on my property if 1 die childless, and therefore not one of them can feel himself in- jured when a few weeks hence he shall read in the newspapers that Sir Philip Derval is married. But for Richard Straban, at least, ■h I never saw him, I must do something befi news- papers make that announcement. His sister was w; mt." " Your neighbors, Sir Philip, will rejoice at your m ince, I -presume, it may induce you to settle among them at Derval Court." "At Derval Court i No! 1 shall not settle there." Again he paused a moment, or so, and then went on. "I have long lived a wandering life, and in it learned much iiiat the wisdom of cities it teach. I return to my native land wiih a profound convic- ii,,n ihat the haiq iest life is the life most in common with all. I have gone my way to do what I deemed good, ami to avert or mitigate what appeared to me evil. I pause ind ask myself, whether the most virtuous existence, be not that in which virtue "flows spontaneously from the springs of quiet, everyday ac- tion ; when a man does good without restlessly seeking it, does good unconsciously, simply because he is good and he lives? Better, perhaps, for me if I had thought so long ago ! And now I come bad; to England with the intention of marrying, late in life though it be, and with such hopes of happiness as any matter-of-fact man may form. But my home will not be at Derval e'ourt. I shall reside either in London or its immediate neighborhood, and seek to gather round me minds by which I can correct, if J cannot confide, the knowledge I myself have acquired." "Nay, if, as I have accidentally heard, you are fond of scientific pursuits, I cannot wonder that after so long an absence from Eng- A STRANGE STORY. 117 land, you should foci interest in learning what new disci ivories have been made, wind new ideas are, unfolding the germs of dis- coveries yet to be. Bui pardon me if. in answer to your coil ing remark, I venture to say that no man can hope to correct any error in his own knowledge, unless he lias the courage to confide . the error to those who can correct. La Place has satd, ' Tout ae > ticnt thins hi c.'/aine immense des verities ; ' and the mistake we make in some science we have specially cultivated is often only to he seen hy the light dfa se] arate science as specially cultivated by another. Thus, in the investigation of troth, frank exposition to congenial minds is essential to the earnest seel "I am pleased with what* you say," said Sir Philip, "and 1 shall he still more pleased to find in you the very confident I re- quire. But what was your controversy with my old friend Dr. Lloyd? Do I understand our host rightly, thai it related to what in Europe has of late days obtained the name of mesmerism? " I had conceived a strong desire to conciliate the good opinion of a man who had treated me with so singular and so familiar a kind- ness, and it was sincerely that T expressed my regrel at the acerbity With which I had assailed Dr. Lloyd ; hut on his theories and pre- tensions I could not disguise my contempt. 1 enlarged an the ex- travagant fallacies involved in a fabulous " clairvoyance," which always failed when plain test by sober-minded examiners. 1 did not den} s of imagination on certain nervous con- stitutions. " Mesmerism could cure nobody ; credulity could cure ■ was the well-known storj of the old woman tried as a witch ; she cured agues hy a, bharm ; she owned the impeach- ment, and was ready to endure gibbel or stake for the truth of her talisman — more than a mesmerist, would for the truth of his passes ! And the charm toas a scroll of gibberish sewn in an old and given to the woman in a freak by the judge himself when a young scamp on the circuit. But the charm cured '. Certainly; just as mesmerism cures. Fools believed in it. Faith, that moves mountains, may well cure ague: Thus J ran on, supporting my views with anecdotes and facts, to which Sir Philip listened with placid gravity. When I had come to an end, he said, " Of mesmerism, as practised in Europe, I know nothing, except by report. I can well understand, that medical men may hesitate to admit it among the legitimate resources of orthodox pathology; because, as 1 gather from what you and others say of its practice, it must, at the best, he hir too uncertain in its application to satisfy the requirements of science. Vet an examination of iis pretensions may enable you to perceive the truth that lies hid in the .powers ascribed to wiiehcraft ; henevolence is but a weak agency compared to malig- nity ; magnetism perverted to evil may solve half the riddl sorcery. On this, however, 1 say no more at present. But as to that which you appear to reject as the most preposterous 1 and in- 118 A STRANGE STORY. credible pretension of the mesmerists, and which you designate by the word ' clairvoyance,' it is clear to me that you have never your- self witnessed even those very imperfect exhibitions which you decide at once to be imposture. I say imperfect, because it is only a limited number of persons whom the eye or the passes of the mesmerist can affect, and by such means, unaided by other means, it is rarely indeed that the magnetic sleep advances beyond the first vague, shadowy twilight dawn of that condition to which only in its fuller developments I would apply the name, of 'trance.' But still trance is as essential a condition of being as sleep or as waking, haying privileges peculiar to itself. , By means will) in the range of the science that explores iks nature and its laws, trance, unlike l\\^ clairvoyance you describe, is producible in every human being, however unimpressible to mere mesmerism." " Producible in every human being ! Pardon me if I say, that I will give any enchanter his own terms who will produce that effect upon me." "Will you? You' consent to have the experiment tried on yourself? " " Consent most readily." " 1 will remember that promise. But to return to i lie subject. By the word trance I do not mean exclusively the spiritual trance of the Alexandrian Platonists. There is one. kind of trance — that to which all human beings are susceptible — in which, the soul has no share ; for of this kind of trance, and it was of this I spoke, some of (he inferior animals are susceptible; and, therefore, trance is no more a proof of soul than is the clairvoyance of the mesmer- ists, or the dream of our ordinary sleep, which last lias been called a proof of soul, though any nwm who has kept a dog must have observed that dogs dream as vividly as We do. Bu1 in this trance' there is an extraordinary cerebral activity — a projectile force given to the mind — distinct from the soul — by which it sends forth its own emanations to a distance in spite of material obstacles, just as a flower, in an altered condition of atmosphere, sends forth the particles of its aroma. This should not surprise you. Your thought travels over land and sea in your waking state; thought, too, can travel in trance, and in trance may acquire an intensified force. There is, however, another kind of trance which is truly called spiritual, a trance much more rare, and in which the soul entirely supercedes the mere action of the mind." " Stay,'' said I, "you speak of the soul as something distinct from the mind. What the soul may be I cannot pretend to con- jecture. But I cannot separate it from the intelligence ! " . "Can you not? A blow on the brain can. destroy the intelli- gence ; do you think it can destroy the soul ? It is recorded of Newton, that, in the decline of his life, his mind had so worn out its functions that his own theorems had become to him unintelli- gible Can you suppose that Newton's soul was as worn out as his A STRAXGE STORY. 119 mind ? If you canaot distinguish mind from soul, I know not by what rational inductions you arrive at the conclusion that the soul is imperishable." I remained silfcnt. Sir Philip fixed on me his dark eyes quietly and saarchinglyj and after a short pause said: "Almost every known bqdy in nature is suseeptible of three several states of existence — the solid, the liquid, the aeriform. These conditions depend on the quantity of heat they oohtain. The same object at one moment may be liquid, at the nexi mo- ment solid, at the next aeriform. The water that flows before your gaze may stop consolidated into ioe, or ascend into air as vapor. Tims is man susceptible of three states of existence — the animal, the menial, the spiritual — and according as be is brought in > lation or affinity with that occult agency of the whole natural world, which we familiarly call 11 HAT. and which no science has splained; which no scale can weigh, and no eye discern; one or the other of these three states of being prevails or is subjected." I still continued silent, for I was unwilling discourteously to say to a stranger, so much older than myself, that be seemed to me to reverse all the maxims of (lie philosophy to which be made pre- tence, in founding speculations audacious and abstruse upon un- analogous comparisons that, would have been fantastic even in a poet. And Sir Philip, after another pause, resumed with a half smile : "After what I have said, if will perhaps not very much surprise you when L add that but for my belief iu the powers I ascribe to trance, we should not be known to each other at tins moment." "How? — pray explain'." "Certain circumstances, which I trust to relate to you in detail hereafter, have imposed on me the duty to discover, and to bring human laws to bear upon, a creature armed with terrible powers of evil. This monster — fur, without metaphor, monster it is, not man like ourselves — has, by arts superior to those of ordinary fugitives, however dexterous in concealment, bitherto.for years eluded my re- search. Through the trance of an Arab child, who in her waking state never beard of its existence, I have learned that this being is in England — is in L . I am here to encouufer him. I expect to do so this very night, and under this very roof." " Sir Philip ! " '• And if you wonder, as well you may. why I bave been talking to you with tins startling unreserve, know that this same Arab child, on whom I thus implicitly rely, informs me that your life is mixed up with that of the being I seek to unmask and disarm — to be destroyed by bis arts or his agents — or to combine in the causes by which the destroyer himself shall be brought to destruction." "My life! — your Arab child mined me, Allen Feriwick I" "My Arab child told me that the person in whom I should thus naturally seek an ally was be who had saved the life of the man 120 A STKANGE STORY. whom T then meant for my heir, if I died unmarried and childless. She told me that I should not be many hours in this town, which she described minutely, before you would be made known to me. She described this house, with yonder lights and yon dancers. In her trance she saw us sitting- together, as now we lit. I accepted the invitation of our host when he suddenly accosted me on entering the town, confident that I should meet you here without even ask- ing whether a person of your name was a resident in the place; and now you know why I have so freely unbosomed myself of much that might well make you, a physician, doubt the soundness of my understanding. The same infant, whose vision has been realized up to this -monlent, has warned me also that I am here at great peril. What that peril may he I have declined to learn, as I have ever declined to ask from the future what effects only my cwn life on this earth.. That life I regard with supreme indifference; con- scious that I have only to discharge, Avhile it lasts, the duties for which it is imposed on me to the best of my imperfect power; and aware that minds the strongest and souls the purest may fall into the sloth habitual to predestinarians if they suffer the actions due to the present hour to be awed and paralyzed by some grim shadow on the future ! It is only where, irrespectively of aught that can menace myself, a light not struck out of my own reason can guide me to disarm evil or minister to good, that I feel privileged to myself of those mirrors on which|thingS, near and far, reflect them- selves calm and distinct as the banks and the mountain peaks are reflected in the glass of a lake. Here, then, under this roof, and by your side, I shall behold him who Lo ! the moment has come — I behold him now ! " As he spoke these last words Sir Philip had risen, and, startled by his action and voice, I involuntarily rose too. Resting one hand on my shoulder, he pointed with the other to- ward the threshold of the ball-room. There, the prominent figure of a gay group — the sole male amidst a fluttering circle of silks and lawn, of flowery wreaths, of female loveliness, and female frip- pery — stood the radiant image of Margrave. His eyes were not turned toward us. He was looking down, and his light laugh came soft, yet ringing, through the general murmur. I turned my astonished gaze back to Sir Philip — yes, unmis- takably it was on Margrave that his look was fixed. Impossible to associate crime with the image of that fair youth ! Eccentric notions — fantastic speculations — vivacious egotism — defective benevolence — yes. But crime ! Xo — impossible. " Impossible ! " I said, aloud. As I spoke the group had moved on. Margrave was no longer in sight. At the same moment some other guests came from the ball-room and seated themselves near us. Sir Philip looked round, and observing the deserted museum^ at the end of the corridor, drew me into it. A STRAXOR STORY. 121 When we were alone ho said In a voice quick and low, but de- cided : "It is of importance that I should convince you at once of ihe nature of thai prodigy which is more hostile to mankind than the wolf is to the sbeepfold. No words of mine could al presenl suffice to clear your sight from the deception which cheats it. I must. enable ydu to judge for yourself. It .must he now, and here. He will learn this night, if he'has nbt ; leamed already, that 1 am in the town. Dim and confused though his memories of myself may be, they are memories still; and be well knows what cause he has to : me. I must put another in possession of his secret. Another, and a Fof all his arts will be brought to hear againsl me, and I cannot foretell its issue. .Go.then; enter thai giddy crowd — select that seeming young man — brjng him hither. Take care only riot to mention" my name; and when here, turn the key in the door, so as to prevent interruption — five minutes will suffice." •'Am 1 sure that I guess whom you mean? The young light- hearted man, known in this place under the name of Margrave I The Voting man with the radiant eves, and the curls of a Gre e?" ' •• The same ; him whom 1 pointed out ; quick, bring him hither." . Curiosity Was loo much roused to disohey. Had I conceived that Margrave, in the heat of youth, had committed some offence which placed him in danger of the law and in the power of Sir Philip Derval, I possessed enough of the old borderers' black-mail loyalty unhavo given to the man whose hand 1 had familiarly clasped a hint ami a help to escape. But all Sir Philip's talk had 30 out of the reach of common sense, that I rather expected to see him confounded by some egregious illusion than Margrave exposed to any well-rounded accusation. All, then, that I fell as 1 walked into the hall-room and approached Margrave, was leal curiosity which, I think, any one of my readers will acknowl- edge that, in my position, he himself would have felt. Margrave was standing near the dancers, not joining them, hut talking with a young couple in the ring. I drew him aside. "(Vine with me for a few minutes into the museum ; I wish to talk with you." ■ " What about > an experiment '?" 8, an experiment." "Then 1 am at your service." In a minute more he had followed me info the desolate, dead museum. 1 looked round but did not see Sir Philip. 122 A STRANGE STORY. CHAPTER XXXII. Margravk threw himself on a seat just under the great ana- conda ; I closed and locked the "door. When I had done so, my eye fell on the young man's face, and I was surprised to see that it had lost its color ; that it showed great anxiety, great distress ; that his hands were visibly trembling. " What is this 1 " he said, in feeble tones, and raising himself half from his seat as if. with great effort. " Help me up — come away ! Something in this room is hostile to me— hostile, over- powering ! What can it be 1 " " Truth and my presence," answered a stern, low voice ; and Sir Philip Derval, whose slight form the huge bulk of the dead elephant had before obscured from my view, came suddenly out from the shadow into the full rays of the lamps which lit up, as if for Man's revel, that mocking tomb for the playmates of nature which he enslaves for his service or slays for his sport. As Sir Philip spoke and advanced, Margrave sank back into his seat, shrinking, collapsing, nerveless ; terror the most abject expressed in his staring eyes and parted lips. On the other hand, the simple dignity of Sir Philip Derval's bearing, and the mild pojyer of his countenance, were alike inconceivably heightened. A change had come over the whole man, the more impressive because wholly undefinable. Halting opposite Margrave, he uttered some words in a language unknown to me, and stretched one hand over the young man's head. Margrave at once became stiff and rigid, as if turned to stone. Sir Philip said to me, " Place one of those lamps on the floor — there, by his feet." I took down one of the colored lamps from the mimic tree round which the huge anaconda coiled its spires, and placed it as I was ,told. "Take the seat opposite to him, and watch." • I obeyed. Meanwhile Sir Philip had drawn from his breast-pocket a small steel casket, and 1 observed, as he opened it, that the interior was subdivided into several compartments, each with its separate lid; from one of these he took and sprinkled over the flame of the lamp a few grains of powder, colorless and sparkling as diamond dust : in a second or so a delicate perfume, wholly unfamiliar to my sense, rose, from the lamp. " You would test the condition of trance — test it, and in the spirit." w A STRANGE STORY. 12 3 And as he spoke his hand rested lightly on my head. Hitherto, surprise *not unmixed with awe, I had preserved a certain defiance, a certain distrust. I had been, as it were, on my guard. But as those words were spoken, as that hand rested on my head, as that perfume arose from the lanlp, al! power of will de- serted me. My first sensation was that of passive subjugation, hut soon 1 was aware of a strange intoxicating "effect from the odor of the lamp, round which there now played a dazzling vapor. The room swam before me. Like a ma:: oppressed by a nig mare, I tried to move, to cry mil — feeling that to do so would suffice to* burst the thrall that bound me ; in vain. A time that seemed to me inexorably long, but which, as I found afterward, could only have occupied a few seconds, elapsed in this preliminary state, which, however powerless, was not with- out a vague luxurious sense of delight. And then suddenly came pain — pain, that in rapid gradations passed into a rending agony. Ivo;y bone, sinew, rienve, fibre of the body, seemed as if wrenched . and as if some hitherto unconjectiired Presence in the vital organization were forcing itself to light with all the pangs of travail. The veins seemed swollen to bursting, the heart laboring to main- tain its action by fierce spasms. I fee! in this description how language fails me. Enough that the anguish I then endured sur- passed all that 1 have ever experienced of physical pain. This dreadful interval subsided as suddenly as it had commenced. I felt as if a something (indefinable by any name had rushed from me, and in that rush that f a struggle was over, 1 was sensible of the passive bliss which attends the fcelease from torture, and then there grew mi me a wonderful cairn, and in that calm a conscious- ness of some lofty intelligence immeasurably beyond that which human memory gathers from earthly knowledge. 1 Saw before me the still rigid form of Margrave, and my sight seemed with ease to penetrate through its covering of flesh and to survey the me- chanism of.the whole interior being. "View that tenement of clay which now seems so fair, as it was when last I beheld it, three years ago, in the bouse of Haroun oi Aleppo '. " I looked, and gradually, and as shade after shade falls on the mountain-side, while the clouds gather, and the sun vanishes at last, so the form and face on which. 1 looked changed from exu- berant youth into infirm old age. The discolored wrinkled skin. the bleared dim eye. the flaccid muscles, the brittle, sap'ess hones Nor was the change that of age alone ; the expression t^\' the countet auce had passed into gloomy discontent, and in every fur- row a passion or a vice had sown the seeds of grief. And the brain now opened on my sight, with a I its labyrinth of Cells. 1 seemed to have the clew to every winding in the ma/ I saw therein a moral world, charred and ruined, as, in stime fable 1 have read, the world of the moon is described to be; yet n 124 A STRANGE STORY.- witha! it was a brain of magnificent formation. The powers abused to evil had been original y of rare order; imagination, and scope: the energies that dare ; the faculties that discover. But the moral part of the brain had failed to dominate the mental. Defective veneration of what is good or great; cynical disdain of what is right and just ; in fine, a great intellect first misguided, then per- verted, and now falling with the decay of the body into ghastly but imposing ruins Such was the world of that brain as it had been three years ago. And still continuing to gaze thereon, I observed three separate emanations of light; the one ofa # palered hue, the second of a pale azi;re, the third a silvery spark. The red light, which grew paler and paler as I looked, undulated from the brain along the arteries, the veins, the nerves. And I murmured to myself, " Is this the principle of animal life? " The azure light equally permeated the frame, crossing and uniting with the red, but in a separate and distinct ray, exactly as in the outer world a ray of light crosses' or unites with a _ray of heat, though in itself a separate individual agency. And again I mur- mured to myself, "Is this the principle of intellectual being, di- recting or influencing that of animal life ; with it, yet not of it ? " But the silvery spark! What was that ? Its centre seemed the brain. But I could fix it to no single organ. Nay, wherever I looked through the system, it reflected itself as a star reflects it- self upon water. And I observed that while the red light was growing feebler and feebler, and the azure light was confused, ir- regular — now obstructed, now hufrying, now almost lost — the sil- very spark was unaltered, undisturbed. So independent of all which agitated and vexed the frame, that I became strangely aware that, if the heart slopped its action, and the red light died out, if the brain were paralyzed, that energic mind smitten into idiocy, and the azure light wandering objectless as a meteor wanders over the morass, — still that silver spark would shine the same, indestructi- ble by aught that shattered its tabernacle. And I murmured to myself, "Can that starry spark speak the presence of the soul ? Does the silver light shine within creatures to which no life im- mortil has been promised by Divine Revelation ? " Involuntarily I turned my sight toward the dead forms in the motley collection, and lo, in my trance or my vision, life returned to them all i To the elephant and the serpent : to the tiger, the vulture, the beetle, the moth ; to the fish and the polypus, and to yon mockery of man in the giant ape. I seemed to see each as it lived in its native realm of earth, or of air, or of water; and the red light played, more or less warm, through the structure of each, and the azure light, though duller of hue, seemed to shoot through the red, and communicate to the creatures an intelligence far inferior indeed to that of man, but sufficing to conduct the current of their will, and influence the cunning of their instincts. But in none, from the elephant to the A STRANGE STORY. moth, from the bird in which brain was the largest to the hybrid in which lift' seemed to live as in plants — in none was visible the starry silver spark. I turned my eyes from the creatures around, again to the form cowering under the huge anaconda, and in ir at the animation which the carcasses took in the awful illusions of that marvelous trance; for the tiger moved as if scent- ing bipod, and In the eyes of the serpent the dread fascination 1 slowly returning. ;ain 1 gazed on the starry spark in the form pf the man. And I murmured to myself, " Bui if this be the soul, why is it so un- irbed and undarkened by the sins which have left such I and such ravage in the world of the brain .'" And gazing yet more intently on the spark, 1 became vaguely aware tliat il not the soul, but the halo around the soul, as the star we see in heaven is not the star itself, but its circle of rays. And if the light itself was undisturbed and undarkened, it was because no sins done in the body could annihilate its essence, nor affect the ete of its duration. The ligJb.1 was clear within the ruins of its lodg- ment, because it might pass away but could not be extinguished. If, in the heart of the light; reflected back on my own soul within me its ineffable trouble, humiliation, and sorrow; foi- those ghastly wrecks of power placed at its sovereign command il was responsible; and, appalled by its own sublime fate of dura- tion, was about to carry into eternity the account of its mission in time. Vu it seemed that while the soul was still there. f forlorn and so guilty, even the wrecks around it were maj And the soul, whatever sentence if might merit, was not among the hopelessly lost. For in its remorse and in its shame it might still have retained what could serve for redemption. And 1 saw that the mind was storming the soul in some terrible rebellious war — ail of thought, of passion, pf desire, through which the; poured its restless How, were surging up round the starry in siege. And I could not comprehend the war, nor guess what it was that the mind demanded the soul to yield. Only the distim ween the two was made intelligible by I antagonism. And i saw that the soul, sorely tempted, looked afar for escape from Hi'' subjects it had ever so ill controlled, and who sought to reduce to their vassal the powerwhich had lost authority as their kin,:. 1 could feel its terror in the sympathy of toy own terror, tin' keenness of my own supplicating pity. 1 knew that it was imploring release from the perils it confessed its want of gtb to encounter. And suddenly the starry spi from the ruins and the tumult around it — rose into space and vanished. And where my soul had recognized the presence of soul there was a void. l!ui the red lighl burned still, becoming more ami more vivid: and as il thus repaired and recruited its lustre, the whole I form which had been so decrepid grew restored from decay, into vigor and youth ; and 1 saw Margrave as 1 had seen him 126 A STRANGE STORY. hi the walking world, the radiant image of animal life in the beauty of its fairest bloom. And over this rich vitality and this symmetric mechanism now reigned only, with the animal life, the mind. The starry light, fled 'and the soul vanished, still was left visible the mind — mind, by which sensations convey and cumulate ideas, and muscles obey volition; mind, as in those animals that have more than the ele- mentary" instincts — mind as it might be in men, were men not immortal. As my eyes, in the vision, followed the azure light, ulating as before through the cells of the brain, and crossing the red amidst the labyrinth of the nerves, I perceived that the ■nee of that azure light had undergone a change; it had lost fchart faculty of continuous and concentrated power by which man improves on the works of the past, and weaves schemes to be de- veloped in the future of remote generations ; it had lost all sympa- in I he past, because it had lost all conception of a future beyOnd the grave ; it had lost conscience, it had lost remorse. The being it informed was no longer . . Mo through eternity for the employment of time. The azure light was even more vivid in certain organs useful to the conservation of existence, as in those organs I had observed it more vivid among some, of the inferior lals than it is in man — secre'tiveness, destructiveiiess, and the read)- perception of things immediate to the wants of the day. And the azure Light was brilliant in cerebral cells, where before it had I , such as those which harbor mirthful, .ess and hope, for e the light was recruited by the exuhe. yous lal being. But it was lead-like, or dim, in the great social or- whlch man suborns his own interest I if his dterly lost in those through which man is reminded of his duties to the throne of his Ma . In that marvelous pene'tration with which the Vi I .wed eived that in this mind, though in energy f many, though retaining, from memories or fch relics of a culture wide and in somethings profound; though sharp- and quickened into formidable, if desultory, force whenever it schemed or aimed at the animal self-conservation, which now made its master-impulse or instinct; and though among tiie re- miniscences of its state before its change were arts which I could not comprehend, but which I felt were dark and terrible, lending to a will never checked by remorse, arms that no healthful philoso- phy has placed in the arsenal of disciplined genius; though the mind in itself had an ally in a body as perfect in strength and elasticity as man can take from the favor of nature — still,' I say, I felt that that mind wanted the something, witheut which men never could found cities, frame laws, bind together, beautify, exalt the elements of this world, by creeds that habitually subject them to a reference to another. The ant, and the 'nee, and the beaver con- gregate and construct ; but they do not improve. Man improves A STRANGE STORY. 127 because the future impels onward that which is not found in an ant, the bee, and the beaver — that which lias gone from the being before me. I shrank appalled into myself, covered my face with my hands, and groaned aloud: "Have I ever then doubted that The soul is distinct from mind ?" A hand here again touched my forehead, the light in the lamp was extinguished, I becante insensible, and when I recovered .1 found myself back in the room in which T had lirst conversed with Sir Philip Derval. and seated, as before, on the sola by his side. CHAPTER XXXII I. My recollections of all which I have just attempted to describe were distinct and vivid; except, with respect to time, it seemed to me as if many hours must have elapsed sinpe I had entered the museum with Margrave; but the clock on the mantleplece mel my eyes as 1 turned them wistfully round the room ; and I was indeed amazed to perceive that five minutes had sufficed for all which it has taken me so long 10 narrate, and which in their transit had hurried me through ideas and emotions so remote from anterior experie To my astonishment, now succeeded shame and indignation — r that 1. who bad scoffed at the possibility oftho compara- tively credible influences of mesmeric action, should bave been so less a puppet under the hand of the slight, feilow-man b< me, and so morbidly impressed by phantasmagorical illusions; in- dignation thai by some fumes which bad special potency over the brain, 1 bad thus been, as it were, conjured out of my senses; and looking full into the calm face ai my side, 1 said, with a smile to which 1 soughl to convey disdain: " 1 congratulate you. Sir Philip Derval, on having learned in your travels in the Mast so expert a familiarity with the tricks of i.>, 'Higglers. "' "The East has a proverb," answered Sir Philip, quietly, "that tiie juggler may learn much from the dervish, but the dervish can learn nothing from the juggler. You will pardon me, hbwev< the effect produced OH you for a few minutes, whatever the cause of il may be, since it may serve to guard your whole life from cal- amities, to which it might otherwise have been exposed. And however you may consider that which you have just experienced to be a mere optical illusion, or the figmenl of a brain super-ex- eiled by the fumes of a vapor, look within yourself and tell me if you do uoL feel an inward and unanswerable conviction that there 12 8 A STRANGE STORY. is more reason to slum ami to fear the creature you left asleep un- tie dead jaws of the giant serpent, than there would be in the lit itself could the venom return to its breath?" 1 was silent, for I could not deny that that conviction had come to me. |* Henceforth, when you recover from the confusion or anger which now disturbs your impressions, you will be prepared to listen to my explanations and my recital, iA a spirit far different from that with which you would have received them before you were recited U) the experiment, which, allow me to remind you, you :! and defied. You will now, I trust, be fitted to become my confidant and assistant — you will advise with me bow, for the sake of humanity, we should act together against the incarnate lie, the anomalous prodigy which glides through the crowd in the image of joyous beauty. For the present I quil you. 1 have an engage- ment on worldly affairs, in the town this night. I am staying at I. , which 1 shall leave for Derval Court to-morrow evening. Come to me there the day after to-morrow ; at any hour that may suit you t Adieu." Here, Sir Philip Derval rose, and left the room. I made no effort to detain him. My mind was too occupied in striving to re ci elf, and account tor the phenomena that had scared it, and for the st - i' the impression it still retained. I soiight to find natural and accountable causes for effects so abnor al Lord Bacon suggests that th< its with which witches . ;s might have had The effect of stopping the ing the brain, cm! thus impressing the sic ..', [>] dupes of their own imagination; s so vivid that, on waking, they were firmly convinced that they had been through the air to the Sccbbat. i remembered also having istmgui§hed.Frehch trai — whose veracity was unquestionable — say, that he had witnessed extraordinary effects produced on the sensorium by certain fumiga- tions used by an African pretender to magic. A person, of how- ever healthy a brain, subjected to toe influence of these fumigations, was induced to believe that he saw the most frightful apparitions. However extraordinary such effects, they were not incredible — not at variance with our notions of the known laws of nature. And to the vapor, or the odors which a powder applied to a lamp had called forth, I was, therefore, prepared to ascribe properties similar to those which Bacon's conjecture ascribed to the witches' ointment, and the French traveler to the fumigations of the African conjurer. .But, as I came to that conclusion, I was seized with an intense curiosity to examine for myself these chemical agencies with which Sir Philip Derval appeared so familiar; — to test the contents in that mysterious casket of steel. I also felt a curiosity no less A fcTBANGB STORY. 129 eager, but more, in spite of myself, intermingled with fear, to learn all that Sir Philip had to communicate of the past history of Mar- grave. I could bul suppose that the young man must indeed be a terrible criminal, for a person of years so grave, and station so high, to intimate accusasibna so vaguely dark, and to use means so extraordinary in order to enlist my imagination rather than my reason against a youth in Whom there appeared none of the signs which suspicion interprets into guilt. While thus musing, I lifted my eyes and saw Margrave himself there, at the threshold of the hall-room — there, where Sir Philip had first pointed him out as the criminal he had come to L to seek and disarm ; and now, as then. Margrave was the radiant centre of a joyous group; not (he young hoy-god, Iacchus, amidst Ids nymphs could, in Grecian frieze or picture, have seemed more the type of the sportive, hilarious vitality of sensuous nature. He, must have passed, unobserved by me, in my preoccupation of thought, from the museum and across the room in which I sat ; and now there was as little trace in that animated countenance of the terror it had exhibited at Sir Philip's approach, as of tii i dbai had undergone in my trance or my phantasy. But he caught sight of me — left his young companions — came gaily to my side. " Did you not ask me to go with you into that museum about half an hour ago, or did I dream that 1 went with you?" •• Ves; you went with me into that museum." "Then pray what dull theme did you select, to set me asleep there I " I looked hard at him, and made no reply. Somewhat to my relief, 1 now heard my host's voice: " Why, 1'Ynwick, what lias become of Sir Philip Penal ?" "He has left. lie had business." And, as I spoke, again I looked hard on Margrave. His countenance now showed a charge ; not surprise, not dis- may, bul rather a play of the lip, a flash of the eye, thai indicated complacency — even triumph. "So! Sir I'hilip Derval. He is in L ; he has been here to-night.' So! as I expected."' " Did you expect it I " said our host. " No one else did. Who could have told yon ? " "The movements of men so distinguished need never lake us by surprise. 1 knew he was in Paris the other day. Natural he should conn' here. 1 was prepared for his coming." Margrave here turned away towards the window, which In- threw open and looked out. "There is a storm in the air," said he, as he continued to gaze into the night. Was it possible that Margrave was so wholly unconscious of what had passed in the museum, as to include in oblivion even the !) 130 A STRANGE STOR/Y. remembrance of Sir Philip Derval's presence before he had been rendered insensible, or laid asleep ? Was it now only for the first time that he learned of Sir Philip's arrival in L , and visit to that house? Was there an}' intimation of menace in his words and his aspect? I felt that the trouble of my heart communicated itself to countenance and manner; and longing for solitude and fresh air, I quitted the house. When I found myself in the street, I turned round and saw Margrave still standing at the open window, but he did not appear to notice me ; his eyes seemed fixed abstractedly on space. CHAPTER XXXIV. I walked on slowly and with the downcast head of a man ab- sorbed in meditation. I had gained the broad place in which the main streets of the town converged, when I was overtaken by a, violent storm of rain. I soughl shelter under the dark archway of that entrance to the district of Abbey Hill which -was still balled Monk-gate. The shadow within the arch was so deep that I was not aware that I had a companion, till T heard my own name, close at my side. I recognized the voice before I could distinguish the form of Sir Philip Derval. " The storm will be soon over," said he, quietly. " I saw it coming on in time. I fear you neglected the first warning of those sable clouds, and must be already drenched." I made no reply, but moved involuntarily away towards the mouth of the arch. " I see that you cherish a grudge against me ! " resumed Sir Philip. " Are you then, by nature, vindictive ? " Somewhat softened by the friendly tone of this reproach, I answered, half in jest, half in earnest, "You must own, Sir Philip, that I have some little reason for the uncharitable anger your question imputes to me. Put I can forgive you on one condition." "What is that?" " The possession, for half an hour, of that mysterious steel casket which you carry about with you, and full permission to analyze and test its contents." " Your analysis of the contents," returned Sir Philip, dryly, "would leave you as ignorant as before, of the uses to which they can be applied. But I will own to you frankly, that it is my in- tention to select some confidant among men of science, to whom I may safely communicate the wonderful properties which certain A STRANGE STORY. 131 essences in that casket possess. I invite your acquaintance, nay, your friendship, in the hope that I may find such a confidant in you. But the casket contains other combinations, which, if wasted, could not be re-supplied ; at least, by any process which the great Master from whom I received them, placed within reach of my knowledge. In this they resemble the diamond ; when the chemist has found that the diamond affords no other substance by its combustion than pure carbonic acid gas, and that the only chemical difference between the costliest diamond, and a lump of pure charcoal, is a proportion of hydrogen, less than one fifty thousandth pari of the weight of the substance — can the chemist make you a diamond l " These, then, the more potent, b it also the more perilous of the casket's contents, shall be explored by no science, submitted to no test. They are tliekeysto masked doors in the ramparts of Nature! which no mortal can pass through without rousing dread sentries never seen upon this side her wall. The powers they confer are secrets locked in my brea$t, t<> be lost in my grave; a- th< ■: skel which lies on my breast shall not be transferred to the hands of another, till ali the resl of my earthlv possessions pass away with my last breath in life, and my lirst in eternity.'' " Sir Philip Dertal," said 1. struggling against the appeals to fancy or to awe, made in words so strange, uttered in a tone of earnest conviction, and heard amidst the glare of the lightning, the howl of the winds, and the roll of the thunder — •• Sir Philip Derval, you accost me in language which, but foj - my experience of the powers at your command, 1 should hear with the contempt t hat is due to the vaunts of a mountebank, or the pity we give to the morbid beliefs of his dupe. As it is, 1 decline the confidence with which you would favor me, subject to the conditions Which it seems you would impose. My profession abandons to quacks all drugs I. may not be analyzed ; al! secrets which may not be fearless- ly toM. I cauiio! visit you at Derval Oourt. I cannot trust my- volunlarily, again in the power of a man, who has arts of which 1 may no1 examine the nature by which he can impose on my imagination, and steal away my reason." "Reflect well, before you so decide," said Sir Philip, with a solemnity that was stern. " If you refuse to be warned and to be armed by me, your reason and your imagination will alike be sub- jected to influences which I can only explain by telling you that there is truth in those immemorial legends which depose to the existence of magic." " Magic ! " '• There is a magic of two kinds— the dark and evil, appertain- ing to witohcrafl or necromancy ; the pure and beneficent, which h but philosophy, applied to oe*rtain mysteries in Nature remote from the beaten tracks of Science, but, which deepened the wisdom 132 A STRANGE STORY. qf ancient sages, and can yet unriddle the myths of departed races." " Sir Philip," I said, with impatient and angry interruption, "if you think that a jargon of this kind be worthy a man of your ac- quirements and station, it is at least a waste of time to address it to me. I am led to conclude that you desire to make use of me for some purpose which I have a right to suppose honest and upright, because all you know of me is, that I rendered to your relation services which cannot lower my character in your eyes. If your object be, as you have intimated, to aid you in exposing and dis- abling a man whose antecedents have been those of guilt, and who threatens with danger the society which receives him, you must give me proofs that are not reducible to magic ; and you must prepossess me against the person you accuse, not by powders and fumes that disorder the brain, but by substantial statements, such as justify one man in condemning another. And, since you have thought it fit to convince me that there are. chemical means at your disposal, by which the imagination can be so affected as to accept, temporarily, illusions for realities, so I again demand, and now still more decidedly than before, that while you address your- self to my reason, whether to explain your object or to vindicate your charges against a man whom I have admitted to my acquaint- ance, you will divest yourself of all means and agencies to warp my judgment, so illicit and fraudulent as those which you own yourself to possess. Let the casket, with all its contents, be trans- ferred to my hands, and pledge me your word that, in giving thai casket, yon reserve to yourself no other means by which chemistry can be abused to those influences over physical organization, which ignorance or imposture may ascribe to — magic." '• I accept no conditions for my confidence, though I think better of you for attempting to make them. If I live, you will seek me yourself and implore my aid. Meanwhile, listen to me, and — " "No ; I prefer the rain and the thunder to the whispers that steal to my ear in the dark from one of whom I have reason to beware " So saying, I stepped forth, and at that moment the lightning flashed through the arch, and brought into full view the face of the man beside me. Seen by that glare, it was pale as the face of a corpse, but its expression was compassionate and serene. I hesitated, for the expression of that hueless countenance touched me ; it was not the face which inspires distrust or fear. " Come." said I, gently , "grant my demand. The casket — " " It is no scruple of distrust that now makes that, demand ; it is a curiosity, which in itself is a fearful tempter. Did you now possess what at this moment you desire, how bitterly you would repent." " Do you still refuse my demand 1 " A STRANGE STORY. 133 " I refuse." " If then you really need me, it is you who will repent." I passed from the arch into the open space. The rain had paused, the thunder was more distant. I looked back when I had gained the opposite side of the way, at the angle of a street which led to my own house. As I did so, again the skies lightened, hut the flash was comparatively slight and evanescent; it did nor pene- trate the gloom of the arch; it. did not bring the form of §ir Philip into view; but, just under the base of the outer buttress to the gateway, I descried the outline of a dark figure, cowering down, huddled up for shelter, the outline so indistinct and so soon lost to sight, as the tlash faded, that I could not distinguish if it, were man or brute. If it were some chance passer-by, who had sought refuge from the rain, and overheard any part, of our strange talk, •■ the listener," thought I, with half a smihj, " must have been mighlly perplexed." CHAPTER XXXV. On reaching my own home, I found my servant, sitting up for me. with the information that my attendance was immediately re- quired. The little hoy whom Margrave's carelessness had so injured, and for whose injury he had shown so little feeling, had been weakened by the confinement which the nature of the injury required, and for the last, few days had been generally ailing. — The father had come to my house a few minutes before I reached it, in ureal distress of mind, saying that his child had been seized with lever; and had become delirious. Hearing that I was at the mayor's house, he had hurried thither in search of me. I felt as if it were almost a relief to the troubled and haunting thoughts which tormented me, to be summoned to the exercise of a familiar knowledge. I hastened to the bedside of the little suf- ferer, and soon forgot all else in the anxious struggle for a human life. The struggle promised to be successful ; the worst symp- toms began to yield to remedies prompt, and energetic, if simple. I remained at the house, rather to comfort and support the pa- rents, than because my continued attendance was absolu'ely needed, till the night was well nigh gone, and, all cause of imme- diate danger having subsided, I then found myself once more in the streets. An atmosphere palely clear in the gray of dawn had succeeded to the thunder-clouds of the stormy night; the street lamps, here and there, burned wan and still. I was walking slowly and wearily, so tired out that I was scarcely conscious of my own thoughts, when, in a narrow lane, my feet stopped almost 134 A STRANGE STORY. mechanically before a human form stretched at full length in the centre of the road, right in my path. The form was dark" in the shadow thrown from the neighboring houses. " Some poor drunk- ard," thought I, and the humanity inseparable from my calling, not allowing me to leave a fellow-crearure thus exposed to the risk of being run over by the first drowsy wagoner who might pass along the thoroughfare, I stooped to rouse and to lift the form. WJnit was my horror when my eyes met the rigid si arc of a dead man's. I started, looked again ; it was the face of Sir Philip Der- val ! He was lying on his back, the countenance upturned, a dark stream oozing from the breast — murdered by two ghastly wounds — murdered not long .since ; the blood was still warm. Stunned and terror-stricken, 1 stood bending over the body. Suddenly i was touched on the shoulder. " Hillo ! what is this ?" said a gruff voice. "Murder!" 1 answered, in hollow accents, which sounded strangely to my own ear. "Murder! so it seems." And the policeman who had thus ac- costed me lifted the body. " A gentleman, by his dress. (low did this happen? How did you come here?" and the policeman g!an< eiously at me. At this moment, however, there came up another policeman, in whom 1 recognized the young man whose sister 1 had attended and cured. " Dr. Fenwick," said the last, lifting his ha: fully, and at the sound of my name, his fellow-policeman changed his man- ner, and muttered an apology. I how collected myself sufficiently to state the name and rank of the murdered man. The policemen bore the body to their station, to which I accompanied them. 1 then returned tomyown house, and had scarcely sunk on my bed when sleep' came over me. But what a sleep ! Never till then had I known how awfully dis- tinct dreams can be. The phantasmagoria of the naturalist's col- lection revived. Life again awoke in the serpent and the tiger, the scorpion moved, and the vulture flapped its wings. And there was Margrave, and there Sir Philip; but their position of power was reversed. And Margrave's foot was on the breast of the dead man. Still I slept on till I was roused by the summons to attend on Mr. Vigors, the magistrate, to whom the police had reportei murder. I dressed hastily, and went forth. As I passed through the street. I found that the dismal news had already spread. I was accosted on my way to the magistrate by a hundred eager tremu- lous, inquiring tongues. The scanty evidence I could impart was soon given. My intro- duction to Sir Philip at the mayor's house, our accidental meeting under the arch, my discovery of the corpse some hours afterwards A STRANGE STORY. 135 on my return from my patient, -my professional belief that the deed must have been dune a very short time, perhaps but a few m-in utes, before I had chanced upon its victim. But, in that case, how account for the long interval that had elapsed between the time in which I had left .Sir Philip under the arch, and the time in which the murder must have been committed] Sir Philip could not have been wandering through the streets all those hours. This doubt, however, was easily and speedily cleared up. A M who was one of the principal solicitors in the town, stated that; lie had acted as Sir Philip's legal agent and adviser ever since Sir Philip came of aire, and was With the exclusive manage- ment of Some valuable house property which the deceased had pos- sessed in L ; that when Sir Philip had arrived in the town, late in the afternoon of the previous day, he had sent for Mr. Je. informed him that he. Sir Philip, was engaged to be married ; that lie desired to have full and minute information as to the details of his house property (which had greatly increased in value since his absence from Knglaud), in connection with the settlements his marriage would render necessary : and that this information was also required by him in respect to a codicil he desired to add to his will. lie had, accordingly, requested Mr. Jeeves to have all the books and statements Concerning the property ready for his in- spection that night, when lie would call, after leaving the ball, which he bad promised the mayor, whom he had accidentally met on entering the town, to attend. Sir Philip had also asked Mr. .Jeeves to detain one of his clerks in his office, in order to serve conjointly with Mr. . Jeeves as a witness to the codicil he desired to add-to his will. Sir Philip had accordingly come to Mr. Jeeves' house a little before midnight; had gone carefully through al. statements prepared for him, and had executed the fresh codicil to his testament, winch testament he had. in their previous interview, given to .Mr. Jeeves' care* sealed up. Mr. Jeeves stated that Sir Philip, though a man of remarkable talents and great acquirements, was extremely eccentric, and of a very peremptory temper, and that the importance attached to a promptitude for which there seemed no pressing occasion, did not surprise him in Sir Philip as ' :!r, have done in an ordinary client. Sir Philip said, indeed, that: he should devote the next morning' to the draft for his wed- ding settlements, according to the information of his property which he had acquired ; and after a visit of very brief duration to Derval Court, should quit the neighborhood and return to Paris, where his intended bride then was, and in which city it had been settled that the marriage ceremony should take- place. Mr. Jeeves had, however, observed to him, that if he were so soon to be married it was better to postpone any revision of testa- mentary bequests, since after marriage he would have to make a new will altogether. 136 A STRANGE STORY. And Sir Philip had simply answered. " Life is uncertain ; who can be sure of the morrow V Sir Philip's visit to Mr. Jeeves' house had lasted some hours, for the conversation between them had branched off from actual business to various topics. Mr. Jeeves had not noticed the hour when Sir Philip went; he could only say that as he attended him to the street door, he observed, rather to his own surprise, that it was close upon daybreak. Sir Philip's body had been found not many yards distant from the hotel at which he had put up, and to which, therefore, he was evidently returning, when he left Mr. Jeeves. An old-fashioned hotel, which had been the principal one at L when Sir Philip left England, though now outrivaled by the new and more central establishment, in which Margrave was domiciled. The primary and natural supposition was that Sir Philip had been murdered for the sake of plunder ; and this supposition was borne out by the fact to which his valet deposed, namely : That Sir Philip had about his person, on going to the mayor's house, a purse containing notes and sovereigns; and Ibis purse was now missing. The valet, who, though an Albanian, spoke English fluently, said that the purse had a gold clasp, on which Sir Philip's crest and initials were engraved. Sir Philip's watch was, however, un- taken. And, now, it was not without a quick beat of the heart, that 1 heard the valet declare that a steel casket, to which Sir Philip attached extraordinary value, and always carried about with him, was also missing. The Albanian described this casket as of ancient Byzantian workmanship, opening with a peculiar spring, only known to Sir Philip, in whose possession it had been, so far as the servant knew, about three years j when, after a visit to Aleppo, in which the servant had not accompanied him, he had first observed it in his master's hands. He was asked if this casket contained arti- cles to account for the value Sir Philip set on it — such as jewels, bank notes, letters of credit, etc. The man replied that it might possibly do so ; he had never been allowed the opportunity of examining its contents ; but that he was certain the casket held medicines, for he had seen Sir Philip take from it some small phials, by which he had performed great cures in the East, and especially during a pestilence which had visited Eamascus, just after Sir Philip had arrived at that city on quitting Aleppo. Almost every European traveler is supposed to be a physician ; and Sir Philip was a man of great benevolence, and the servant firmly believed him also to be of great medical skill. After this statement, it was very naturally and generally conjectured that Sir Philip was an amateur disciple of homoepathy, and that the A STRANGE STORY. 137 casket contained the phials or globules in use among aomcepa- tbists. Whether or not Mr. Vigors enjoyed a vindictive triumph in making me feel the weight of bis authority, or whether liis temper was milled in the excitement of so grave a case, I cannol say, but Ins manner was stem and his tone discourteous in the i tions which he addressed to me. Nor did the questions them- selves seem very pertinent to the object of investigation. "Tray, Dr. Fenwick," said he, knitting Ids brows, mid fixing his eyes on me rudely, "did Sir Philip Dcrval, in his oonvers; with you, mention the steel casket winch it seems he carried about with him - 1 felt my countenance change slightly, as I answered, "Yes." " Did be tell you what it contained 1 "' "He said it contained secrets." " Secrets of what nature, medicinal or chemical ! Secrets which a physician might be curious to learn and covetous to possess [ " This question seemed to me so offensively significant that it roused my indignation, and 1 answered haughtily, that " a physi- cian of any degree of merited reputation did not much believe in, and still less covet, those secrets in his art, which were the boast of quacks and pretenders." "My question need not offend you. Dr. Fenwick. I put it in another shape. Did Sir Philip Derval so boast of the secrets con- tained in his casket, that a quack or pretender might deem such secrets of use to him 1 '" "Possibly he might, if he believed in such a boast," " Humph — he might if he so believed. I have no more ques- tions to put to you at present. Dr. Fenwick." Little of any importance in connection with the deceased, or his murder, transpired in the course of that day's examination and inquiries. ■ The next day, a gentleman, distantly related to the young lady to whom Sir Philip was engaged, and who had been for some time in correspondence with the deceased, arrived at L . lie had been sent for at the suggestion of the Albanian servant, who said that- Sir Philip had stayed a day at this gentleman's house in Lon- don, on his way to L , from Dover. The new comer, whose name was Danvers. gave ;i more touch- ing pathos to the horror which the murder had excited. It seemed that the motives which had swayed Sir Philip in the choice of Ids betrothed, were singularly pure and noble. The young lady's father — an intimate college friend — had been visited by a sudden reverse of fortune, which had brought on a fever that proved mortal. He had died some years ago, leaving bus only child pen- niless, and had bequeathed her to the care and guardianship of Sir Philip. 138 A STRANGE STORY. The orphan received her education at a convent near Paris ; and when tSir Philip, a few weeks since, arrived in that city from the East, he offered her his hand and fortune. " I know," said Mr. Danvers, " from the conversation I held with him when lie came to me in London, that he was induced to this offer by the conscientious desire to discharge the trust consigned to him by his old friend. Sir Philip was still too young to take under his own roof a female ward of eighteen, without injury to her good name. He could only get over that difficulty by making the ward his wife. 'She will be safer and happier with the man she will love and honor for her father's sake,' said the. chivalrous gentle- man, ' than she will be under any other roof I could find for her.' " And now there arrived another stranger to L , sent for by Mr. Jeeves, the lawyer ; a stranger to L , but not to me ; my ,old Edinburgh acquaintance, Richard Strahan. The will in Mr. Jeeves' keeping, with its recent codicil, was opened and read. The will itself bore date about six years ante- rior to the testator's tragic death ; it was very short, and, with the exception of a few legacies, of which the most important was ten thousand pounds to his ward, the whole of his property was left to Richard Strahan, on the condition that he took the name and arms of Derval within a year from) the date of Sir Philip's de- cease. The codicil, added to the will the night before his death, increased the legacy to the young lady from ten to thirty thousand pounds, ami bequeathed an annuity of one hundred pounds a year to his Albanian servant. Accompanying the will, and within the same envelope, was a sealed letter, addressed to Richard Strahan, and dated at Paris two weeks before Sir Philip's decease. Strahan brought that letter to me. It ran thus: "Richard Strahan, 1 advise you to pull down the house called Derval Court, and to buiM another on a better site, the plans of which, to be modified according to your own taste and requirements* will be found among my papers. This is a recommendation, not a command. But 1 strictly enjoin you entirely to demolish the more ancient part, which wa ipied by myself, and to destroy by fire, without perusal, all the books and manuscripts found in the safes in my study. I have appointed you my sole executor, as we'd as my heir, because I have no personal friends in whom I can con- fide as I trust I may do in the man I have never seen, simply because he will bear my name and represent my lineage. There will be found in my writing desk, which always accompanies me in my travels, an autobiographical work, a record of my own life, com- prising discoveries, or hints at discovery, in science, through means little cultivated in our age. You will not be surprised that before selecting you as my heir and executor, from a crowd of relations not more distant, I should have made inquiries in order to justify my selection. The result of those inquiries informs me that you have not yourself the peculiar knowledge nor the habits of mind A STRANGE STORY. 139 that cmild enable you to judge' of matters 'Which demand the attain- ments and the practice of science ; bu1 thai you are bf an honest, innate nature, and will regard as sacred the last injunctioi a benefactor. I enjoin yen, then, to submit the aforesaid manu- script memoir to some man on whose character for humanity and honor you call place confidential reliance, and who is ac< to the study of the positive sciences, more especially chemistry, in connection with electricity and magnetism. My desire is^th shall edit and arrange this memoir for publication; and thai, wherever ho feels a c< nsbientious doubt whether any discovery, or hint of discovery, therein contained, would not prove more danger- ous than useful to mankind, he shall consult with any other three men of science whose names are a guarantee for probity and know- ledge, and according to the best of his judgment, after such con- sultation, suppress or publish the passage of which he has so doubted. I own the ambition Which first directed me towards studies of a very unusual charai which has encouraged me in their pur- suit through many years of voluntary exile, in lands where I be best facilitated or aided — the ami leaving behind me the renown of a bold discoverer in those recesses of na