A STRANGE STORY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "MY NOVEL," " RIENZI," &c.
CHAPTER LXXVII.

To those of my readers who may seek, with
Julius Faber, to explore, through intelligible
causes, solutions of the marvels I narrate,
Margrave's confession may serve to explain
away much that my own superstitious beliefs
had obscured. To them Margrave is evidently
the son of Louis Grayle. The elixir of life is
reduced to some simple restorative, owing
much of its effect to the faith of a credulous
patient: youth is so soon restored to its joy
in the sun, with or without an elixir. To
them, Margrave's arts of enchantment are
reduced to those idiosyncrasies of temperament on
which the disciples of Mesmer build up their
theories; exaggerated, in much, by my own
superstitions; aided, in part, by such natural
purely physical magic as, explored by the ancient
priestcrafts, is despised by the modern philosophies,
and only remains occult because Science
delights no more in the slides of the lantern
which fascinated her childhood with simulated
phantoms. To them, Margrave is, perhaps, an
enthusiast, but, because an enthusiast, not less
an impostor. " L'Homme se pique," says Charron.
Man cogs the dice for himself ere he
rattles the box for his dupes. Was there ever
successful impostor who did not commence by a
fraud on his own understanding? Cradled in
Orient Fable-land, what though Margrave
believes in its legends; in a wand, an elixir; in
sorcerers or Afrites? that belief in itself makes
him keen to detect, and skilful to profit by, the
latent but kindred credulities of others. In
all illustrations of Duper and Duped through
the records of superstition—from the guile
of a Cromwell, a Mahomet, down to the cheats
of a gipsy— professional visionaries are amongst
the astutest observers. The knowledge that
Margrave had gained of my abode, of my affliction,
or of the innermost thoughts in my mind,
it surely demanded no preternatural aids to
acquire. An Old Bailey attorney could have got
at the one, and any quick student of human
hearts have readily mastered the other. In
fine, Margrave, thus rationally criticised, is no
other prodigy (save in degree and concurrence
of attributes simple, though not very common)
than may be found in each alley that harbours a
fortune-teller who has just faith enough in the
stars or the cards to bubble himself while he
swindles his victims; earnest, indeed, in the self-
conviction that he is really a seer, but reading
the looks of his listeners, divining the thoughts
that induce them to listen, and acquiring by
practice a startling ability to judge what the
listeners will deem it most seer-like to read in
the cards, or divine from the stars.

I leave this interpretation unassailed. It is
that which is the most probable, it is clearly
that which, in a case not my own, I should have
accepted; and yet I revolved and dismissed it.
The moment we deal with things beyond our
comprehension, and in which our own senses are
appealed to and baffled, we revolt from the
Probable, as it seems to the senses of those who
have not experienced what we have. And the
same Principle of Wonder that led our philosophy
up from inert ignorance into restless knowledge,
now winding back into Shadow-land, reverses its
rule by the way, and, at last, leaves us lost in
the maze, our knowledge inert, and our ignorance
restless.

And putting aside all other reasons for
hesitating to believe that Margrave was the son of
Louis Grayle— reasons which his own narrative
might suggest—was it not strange that Sir
Philip Derval, who had instituted inquiries so
minute, and reported them in his memoir with
so faithful a care, should not have discovered
that a youth, attended by the same woman who
had attended Grayle, had disappeared from the
town on the same night as Grayle himself
disappeared? But Derval had related truthfully,
according to Margrave's account, the flight of
Ayesha and her Indian servant, yet not alluded
to the flight, not even to the existence, of the
boy, who must have been of no mean importance
in the suite of Louis Grayle, if he were, indeed,
the son whom Grayle had made his constant
companion, and constituted his principal heir.

Not many minutes did I give myself up to
the cloud of reflections through which no
sunbeam of light forced its way. One thought
overmastered all: Margrave had threatened death to
my Lilian, and warned me of what I should
learn from the lips of Faber, "the sage of the
college." I stood, shuddering, at the door of
my home; I did not dare to enter.

"Allen," said a voice, in which my ear
detected an unwonted tremulous faltering, "be
firm—be calm. I keep my promise. The hour