no mistress ever lived for him there!* See the
hard man of science, so austere in his passionless
problems; follow him now where the
brain rests from its toil, where the heart finds its
Sabbath—what child is so tender, so yielding and
soft?

* 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.

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 the room, what
was that? A silvery whiteness—vaguely shaped
as a human form—receding, fading, gone! Why
I know not—for no face was visible, no form, if
form it were, more distinct than the colourless
outline—why I know not, but I cried aloud,
"Lilian! Lilian!" My voice came strangely back
to my own ear. I paused, then 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 Müller
frankly tells us anecdotes of the illusions which
would haunt his eyes, shut or open), an anec-
dote I may quote when I come to my Chapter on
the Cheats of the Senses and Spectral Phantasms."
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 rest, "I have written that which
allots with precision man's place in the region of
nature; written that which will found a school
—form disciples; and race after race of those
who cultivate truth through pure reason, shall
accept my bases if they enlarge my building."
And again I heard the sigh, but this time it
caused no surprise. "Certainly," I 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 the 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, not residing
at his family seat, which was about five miles
from L———. It was rarely indeed that persons
so far from the town, when of no higher rank
than this applicant, asked my services. But it
was my principle to go wherever I was
summoned; my profession was not gain, it was
healing, to which gain was an incident, not
the essential. This case the messenger
reported as urgent. I went on horseback, and
rode fast; but swiftly as I cantered through the
village that 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-house, the
contrast between the neglect and decay of the
absentee's stately hall and the smiling homes of
his villagers was disconsolately mournful.

An imposing pile, built apparently by
Vanburgh, with decorated pilasters, pompous portico,
and grand perron (or double flight of stairs to the
entrance), enriched with urns and statues, but
discoloured, mildewed, chipped, half hidden with
unpruned creepers and ivy. Most of the windows
were closed with shutters, decaying for want
of paint; in some of the casements the panes
were broken; the peacock perched on the
shattered balustrade that fenced a garden overgrown
with weeds. The sun glared hotly on the
place, and made its ruinous condition still more
painfully apparent. I was glad when a winding
in the park road shut the house from my sight.
Suddenly, I 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 stone
walls of massive thickness, and surrounded by a
funereal garden of roses and evergreens, 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 impression which the
aspect of the deserted home, with its neighbourhood,
had made. I spurred my horse and soon
arrived at the door of my patient, who lived in a
fair brick house at the other extremity of the park.

I 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
already sensible, and out of immediate danger.
After I had prescribed a few simple remedies, I
took aside the patient's wife, and went with her
to the parlour below stairs, to make some inquiry
about her husband's ordinary regimen and habits
of life. These seemed sufficiently regular; I could
discover no apparent cause for the attack, which
presented symptoms not familiar to my experience.
"Has your husband ever had such fits
before?"

"Never!"

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

The woman looked much disturbed at these
inquiries. I pressed them 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—yet I 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."