truth from so awful a mystery; but Margrave
had escaped from congratulation and compliment;
he had gone on a visit to Strahan, at
Derval Court.

Alone, at last, in the welcome sanctuary of my
own home, what were my thoughts? Prominent
amongst them all was that assertion of the madman,
which had made me shudder when repeated
to me: he had been guided to the murder and to
all the subsequent proceedings by the luminous
shadow of the beautiful youth—the Scin-Læca
to which I had pledged myself. If Sir Philip
Derval could be believed, Margrave was
possessed of powers, derived from fragmentary
recollections of a knowledge acquired in a former
state of being, which would render his remorseless
intelligence infinitely dire, and frustrate
the endeavours of a reason, unassisted by similar
powers, to thwart his designs or bring the law
against his crimes. Had he then the arts that
could thus influence the minds of others to serve
his fell purposes, and achieve securely his own
evil ends through agencies that could not be
traced home to himself?

But for what conceivable purpose had I been
subjected as a victim to influences as much
beyond my control as the Fate or Demoniac Necessity
of a Greek Myth? In the legends of the
classic world some august sufferer is oppressed
by Powers more than mortal, but with an
ethical if gloomy vindication of his chastisement
—he pays the penalty of crime committed by his
ancestors or himself, or he has braved, by
arrogating equality with the gods, the mysterious
calamity which the gods alone can inflict. But I,
no descendant of Pelops, no Å’dipus, boastful of
a wisdom which could interpret the enigmas of
the Sphinx, while ignorant even of his own
birth—what had I done to be singled out from
the herd of men for trials and visitations from
the Shadowland of ghosts and sorcerers? It
would be ludicrously absurd to suppose that Dr.
Lloyd's dying imprecation could have had a
prophetic effect upon my destiny; to believe
that the pretences of mesmerism were
specially favoured by Providence, and that to
question their assumptions was an offence of
profanation to be punished by exposure to
preternatural agencies. There was not even that
congruity between cause and effect which fable
seeks in excuse for its inventions. Of all men
living, I, unimaginative disciple of austere
science, should be the last to become the sport
of that witchcraft which even imagination
reluctantly allows to the machinery of poets, and
science casts aside into the mouldy lumber-room
of obsolete superstition.

Rousing my mind from enigmas impossible
to solve—it was with intense and yet with most
melancholy satisfaction that I turned to the
image of Lilian, rejoicing, though with a thrill
of awe, that the promise so mysteriously
conveyed to my senses, had, here too, been already
fulfilled—Margrave had left the town; Lilian
was no longer subjected to his evil fascination
But an instinct told me that that
fascination had already produced an effect adverse
to all hope of happiness for me. Lilian's
love for myself was gone. Impossible otherwise
that she—in whose nature I had always
admired that generous devotion which is,
more or less, inseparable from the romance of
youth—should have never conveyed to me one
word of consolation in the hour of my agony
and trial: that she who, till the last evening
we had met, had ever been so docile, in
the sweetness of a nature femininely submissive,
to my slightest wish, should have
disregarded my solemn injunction, in admitting
Margrave to acquaintance, nay, to familiar intimacy;
and at the very time when to disobey my
injunctions was to embitter my ordeal, and add
her own contempt to the degradation imposed
upon my honour! No, her heart must be
wholly gone from me; her very nature wholly
warped. An union between us had become
impossible. My love for her remained unshattered;
the more tender, perhaps, for a sentiment of
compassion. But my pride was shocked, my
heart was wounded. My love was not mean
and servile. Enough for me to think that she
would be at least saved from Margrave. Her life
associated with his!—contemplation, horrible
and ghastly!—from that fate she was saved.
Later, she would recover the effect of an
influence happily so brief. She might form some
new attachment—some new tie. But love once
withdrawn is never to be restored—and her love
was withdrawn from me. I had but to release
her, with my own lips, from our engagement—
she would welcome that release. Mournful but
firm in these thoughts and these resolutions, I
sought Mrs. Ashleigh's house.

CHAPTER XLII.

IT was twilight when I entered, unannounced
(as had been my wont in our familiar
intercourse), the quiet sitting-room in which I
expected to find mother and child. But Lilian
was there alone, seated by the open window, her
hands crossed and drooping on her knee, her
eye fixed upon the darkening summer skies, in
which the evening star had just stolen forth,
bright and steadfast, near the pale sickle of a half-
moon that was dimly visible, but gave as yet no
light.

Let any lover imagine the reception he
would expect to meet from his betrothed,
coming into her presence after he had passed
triumphant through a terrible peril to life and
fame—and conceive what ice froze my blood,
what anguish weighed down my heart, when
Lilian, turning towards me, rose not, spoke
not—gazed at me heedlessly as if at some
indifferent stranger —and—and—But no matter!
I cannot bear to recal it even now, at the
distance of years! I sat down beside her, and
took her hand, without pressing it; it rested
languidly, passively in mine—one moment;—I
dropped it then, with a bitter sigh.

"Lilian," I said, quietly, "you love me no
longer. Is it not so?"

She raised her eyes to mine, looked at me