may stop consolidated into ice, or ascend into
air as vapour. Thus is man susceptible of three
states of existence—the animal, the mental, the
spiritual—and according as he is brought into
relation or affinity with that occult agency of the
whole natural world, which we familiarly call
HEAT, and which no science has yet explained;
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 he seemed to me to reverse all
the maxims of the philosophy to which he made
pretence, in founding speculations audacious
and abstruse upon unanalogous 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, it will perhaps not
very much surprise you when I add that but for
my belief in the powers I ascribe to trance, we
should not be known to each other at this
moment.”

“How—pray explain!”
“Certain circumstances which I trust to relate
to you in 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, for, without metaphor,
monster it is, not man like ourselves, has, by arts
superior to those of ordinary fugitives, however
dexterous in concealment, hitherto, for years,
eluded my research. Through the trance of an
Arab child, who, in her waking state, never heard
of his existence, I have learned that this being is
in England—is in L——. I am here to encounter
him. I expect to do so this very night, and under
this very roof.”

“Sir Philip!”

“And if you wonder, as you well may, why I have
been talking to you with this startling unreserve,
know that the 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 his 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 named me, Allen
Fenwick?”

“My Arab child told me that the person in
whom I should thus naturally seek an ally was
he who had saved the life of the man whom I
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 we now sit. 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 asking
whether a person of your name were 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 realised up to this moment, has warned
me also that I am here at great peril. What
that peril may be I have declined to learn, as I
have ever declined to ask from the future, what
affects only my own life on this earth. That life
I regard with supreme indifference, conscious
that I have only to discharge, while 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 paralysed 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
avail myself of those mirrors on which things,
near and far, reflect themselves 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 towards 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 frippery—stood the radiant
image of Margrave. His eyes were not turned
towards 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, unmistakably 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!—No—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.

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

“It is of importance that I should convince
you at once of the nature of that prodigy which
is more hostile to mankind than the wolf is to the
sheepfold. No words of mine could at present
suffice to clear your sight from the deception
which cheats it. I must enable you to judge for
yourself. It must be now, and here. He will
learn this night, if he has not learned already,
that I am in the town. Dim and confused though