centre of this hollow, an exceedingly fine thread-
like wire, the unattached end of which would
slightly touch the palm when the wand was
taken into the hand. Was it possible that
there might be a natural and even a simple cause
for the effects which this instrument produced?
Could it serve to collect, from that great focus of
animal heat and nervous energy which is placed
in the palm of the human hand, some such latent
fluid as that which Reichenbach calls the " odic,"
and which, according to him, " rushes through and
pervades universal Nature?" After all, why not?
For how many centuries lay unknown all the
virtues of the loadstone and the amber? It is
but as yesterday that the forces of vapour have
become to men genii more powerful than those
conjured up by Aladdin; that light, at a touch,
springs forth from invisible air; that thought
finds a messenger swifter than the wings of the
fabled Afrite. As, thus musing, my hand closed
over the wand, I felt a wild thrill through my
frame. I recoiled; I was alarmed lest (according
to the plain common-sense theory of Julius
Faber) I might be preparing my imagination to
form and to credit its own illusions. Hastily I
laid down the wand. But then it occurred to
me, that whatever its properties, it had so served
the purposes of the dread Fascinator from whom
it had been taken, that he might probably seek
to re-possess himself of it; he might contrive to
enter my house in my absence; more prudent to
guard in my own watchful keeping the
incomprehensible instrument of incomprehensible arts.
I resolved, therefore, to take the wand with me,
and placed it in my travelling-trunk with such
effects as I selected for use in the excursion
that was to commence with the morrow. I
now laid down to rest, but I could not sleep.
The recollections of the painful interview with
Mrs. Poyntz became vivid and haunting. It
was clear that the sentiment she had conceived
for me was that of no simple friendship—
something more or something less—but
certainly something else; and this conviction
brought before me that proud hard face,
disturbed by a pang wrestled against but not
subdued, and that clear metallic voice, troubled by
the quiver of an emotion which, perhaps, she had
never analysed to herself. I did not need her
own assurance to know that this sentiment was
not to be confounded with a love which she
would have despised as a weakness and repelled
as a crime; it was an inclination of the intellect,
not a passion of the heart. But still it admitted
a jealousy little less keen than that which has
love for its cause; so true it is that jealousy is
never absent where self-love is always present.
Certainly it was no susceptibility of sober friendship
which had made the stern arbitress of a
coterie ascribe to her interest in me her pitiless
judgment of Lilian. Strangely enough, with the
image of this archetype of conventional usages
and the trite social life, came that of the mysterious
Margrave, surrounded by all the attributes
with which superstition clothes the being of the
shadowy border land that lies beyond the chart
of our visual world itself. By what link were
creatures so dissimilar riveted together in the
metaphysical chain of association? Both had
entered into the record of my life when my
life admitted its own first romance of love.
Through the aid of this cynical schemer I had
been made known to Lilian. At her house I had
heard the dark story of that Louis Grayle, with
whom, in mocking spite of my reason, conjectures
(which that very reason must depose itself
before it could resolve into distempered fancies)
identified the enigmatical Margrave. And now
both she, the representative of the formal world
most opposed to visionary creeds, and he, who
gathered round him all the terrors which haunt the
realm of fable, stood united against me—foes
with whom the intellect I had so haughtily
cultured knew not how to cope. Whatever assault
I might expect from either, I was unable to assail
again. Alike, then, in this, are the Slander and
the Phantom; that which appals us most in their
power over us is our impotence against them.

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

CHAPTER LX.

The beautiful lake! We two are on its grassy
margin. Twilight melting into night; the stars
stealing forth, one after one. What a wonderful
change is made within us when we come from
our callings amongst men, chafed, wearied,
wounded; gnawed by our cares, perplexed by
the doubts of our very wisdom, stung by the
adder that dwells in cities—Slander; nay, even
if renowned, fatigued with the burden of the
very names that we have won; what a change is
made within us when suddenly we find ourselves
transported into the calm solitudes of Nature;
—into scenes familiar to our happy dreaming
childhood; back, back from the dusty thoroughfares
of our toil-worn manhood to the golden
fountain of our youth! Blessed is the change,
even when we have no companion beside us to
whom the heart can whisper its sense of relief
and joy. But if the One, in whom all our future