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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I cannot say. You are killing me. Enough
that you were saved from a great danger by the
apparition of the protecting image vouchsafed to
your eye, otherwise you would— you would—
Oh, release me! Away! away!"

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

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

He raised his head, made a visible effort to
rally his strength, and gasped out,

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

I retreated to the other end of the room, turning
the wand from him, and when I gained the door,
looked back; his convulsipns had ceased, but he
seemed locked in a profound swoon. I left the
room— the house— paused by Waby; he was
still sleeping. "Awake!" I said, and touched
him with the wand. He started up at once,
rubbed his eyes, began stammering out excuses.
I checked them, and bade him follow me. I took
the way up the open ground towards which
Margrave had pointed the wand, and there, motionless,
beside a gnarled fantastic thorn-tree, stood
Lilian. Her arms were folded across her breast;
her face, seen by the moonlight, looked so
innocent and so infantine, that I needed no other
evidence to tell me how unconscious she was of the
peril to which her steps had been drawn. I took
her gently by the hand. " Come with me," I
said, in a whisper; and she obeyed me silently,
and with a placid smile.

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

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

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

CHAPTEK, LVI.

LILIAN recovered, but the strange thing was
this: all memory of the weeks that had elapsed
since her return from visiting her aunt was
completely obliterated; she seemed in profound
ignorance of the charge on which I had been
confined; perfectly ignorant even of the existence
of Margrave; she had, indeed, a very vague
reminiscence of her conversation with me in the
garden— the first conversation which had ever
been embittered by a disagreement— but that
disagreement itself she did not recollect. Her
belief was that she had been ill and light-headed
since that evening. From that evening to the
hour of her waking, conscious and revived, all