time recoil; I continued to grasp and by which I smote himself, in the wand, and sought deliberately the midst of his tiger-like wrath, to analyze my own sensations in the into the helplessness of a sick man's contact. There came over me an swoon! Can the instrument at this increased consciousness of vital distance still control him; if now power; a certain exhilaration, elas- meditating evil, disarm and disable ticity, vigour, such as a strong cordial his purpose?" Involuntarily, as I may produce on a fainting man. revolved these ideas, I stretched All the forces of my frame seemed forth the wand, with a concentred refreshed, redoubled; and as such energy of desire that its influence effects on the physical system are should reach Margrave and comordinarily accompanied by corre- mand him. And since I knew not spondent effects on the mind, so I his whereabout, yet was vaguely was sensible of a proud elation of aware that, according to any conspirits a kind of defying, superb ceivable theory by which the wand self-glorying. All fear seemed could be supposed to carry its imablotted out from my thought, as a gined virtues to definite goals in weakness impossible to the grandeur distant space, it should be pointed and might which belong to Intel- in the direction of the object it was lectual Man; I felt as if it were a intended to affect, so I slowly moved royal delight to scorn Earth and the wand as if describing a circle, its opinions, brave Hades and its and thus, in some point of the circle spectres. Rapidly this new-born-east, west, north, or south-the arrogance enlarged itself into desires direction could not fail to be true. vague but daring. My mind reverting to the wild phenomena associated with its memories of Margrave, I said, half-aloud, "If a creature so beneath myself in constancy of will and completion of thought can wrest from Nature favours so marvellous, what could not be won from her by me, her patient persevering seeker? What if there be spirits around and about, invisible to the common eye, but whom we can submit to our control; and what if this rod be charged with some occult fluid, that runs through all creation, and can be so disciplined as to establish communication wherever life and thought can reach to beings that live and think? So would the mystics of old explain what perplexes me. Am I sure that the mystics of old duped themselves or their pupils? This, then, this slight wand, light as a reed in my grasp, this, then, was the instrument by which Margrave sent his irresistible will through air and space, I overcame the startled shudder

Before I had performed half the
circle, the wand of itself stopped,
resisting palpably the movement of
my hand to impel it onward. Had
it, then, found the point to which
my will was guiding it, obeying my
will by some magnetic sympathy
never yet comprehended by any
recognised science?
I know not;

but I had not held it thus fixed for
many seconds, before a cold air, well
remembered, passed by me, stirring
the roots of my hair; and, reflected
against the opposite wall, stood the
hateful Scin-Læca. The Shadow
was dimmer in its light than when
before beheld, and the outline of the
features was less distinct - still it
was the unmistakable lemur, or
image, of Margrave.

And a voice was conveyed to my senses, saying, as from a great distance, and in weary yet angry accents

"You have summoned Wherefore ?"

me ?

with which, at first, I beheld the can have effect on the body and Shadow and heard the Voice.

In a few moments I felt the floors of the room vibrate; the air was darkened a vaporous, hazy cloud "Stay. If, as thou sayest, no com- seemed to rise from the ground mand I address to thee-to thee, without the casement; an awe, inwho art only the image or shadow-finitely more deep and solemn than

that which the Scin-Læca had caused | reason and fool my senses? Or if, in its earliest apparition, curdled on the other hand, I force my sense through my veins, and stilled the very beat of my heart.

to admit what all sober men must reject-if I unschool myself to beAt that moment I heard, without, lieve that in what I have just expethe voice of Lilian, singing a simple, rienced there is no mental illusion, sacred song which I had learned at that sorcery is a fact, and a demon my mother's knees, and taught to world has gates which open to a key her the day before: singing low, that a mortal can forge - who but and as with a warning angel's voice. a saint would not shrink from the By an irresistible impulse I dashed practice of powers by which each the wand to the ground, and bowed passing thought of ill might find in my head as I had bowed it when my a fiend its abettor? In either case-infant mind comprehended, without in any case-while I keep this direan effort, mysteries more solemn ful relic of obsolete arts, I [am than those which perplexed me now. haunted-cheated out of my senses Slowly I raised my eyes, and looked-unfitted for the uses of life. If, as round: the vaporous, hazy cloud had my ear or my fancy informs me, passed away, or melted into the grief-human grief is about to ambient rose-tints amidst which the befall me, shall I, in the sting of imsun had sunk. patient sorrow, have recourse to an Then, by one of those common aid which, the same voice declares, reactions from a period of over-will reduce me to a tool and a slave? strained excitement, there succeeded-tool and slave to a being I dread to that sentiment of arrogance and daring with which these wild, halfconscious invocations had been fostered and sustained, a profound humility, a warning fear.

as a foe! Out on these nightmares! and away with the thing that bewitches the brain to conceive them!"

I rose; I took up the wand, holding it so that its hollow should not rest on the palm of the hand. I stole from the house by the back way, in order to avoid Lilian, whose voice I still heard, singing low, on the lawn in front. I came to a creek, to the bank of which a boat was

"What!" said I, inly, "have all those sound resolutions, which my reason founded on the wise talk of Julius Faber, melted away in the wrack of haggard, dissolving fancies! Is this my boasted intellect, my vaunted science! I-I, Allen Fenwick, not only the credulous be- moored, undid its chain, rowed on to liever, but the blundering prac-a deep part of the lake, and dropped titioner, of an evil magic! Grant what may be possible, however uncomprehended-grant that in this accursed instrument of antique superstition there be some real powers

chemical, magnetic, no matter what by which the imagination can be aroused, inflamed, deluded, so that it shapes the things I have seen, speaks in the tones I have heard-grant this, shall I keep ever ready, at the caprice of will, a constant tempter, to steal away my

the wand into its waves. It sank at once; scarcely a ripple furrowed the surface, not a bubble arose from the deep. And, as the boat glided on, the star mirrored itself on the spot where the placid waters had closed over the tempter to evil.

Light at heart I sprang again on the shore, and hastening to Lilian, where she stood on the silvered, shining sward, clasped her to my breast.

"Spirit of my life!" I murmured,

dreaming of bliss, let the future not rob me of thee, and a balm will be found for each wound! Love me ever as now, oh my Lilian; troth

no enchantments for me but thine ! Thine are the spells by which creation is beautified, and, in that beauty, hallowed. What though we can see not into the to troth, side by side, till the measureless future from the verge grave!"

of the moment-what though sor

"And beyond the 'grave," an

row may smite us while we are swered Lilian, softly.

CHAPTER LXII.

Mrs. Ashleigh did not doubt that her housekeeper had written to Lilian, whom she had known from the cradle, and to whom she was tenderly attached, instead of to her mistress; and, saying something to me to that effect, quickened her steps towards the house.

OUR Vows are exchanged at the whom the kind mistress felt anxious. altar-the rite which made Lilian The servant replied that there was my wife is performed-we are re-no letter for her, but one directed to turned from the church, amongst Miss Ashleigh, which he had just the hills, in which my fathers had sent up to the young lady. worshipped; the joy-bells that had pealed for my birth, had rung for my marriage. Lilian has gone to her room to prepare for our bridal excursion; while the carriage we have hired is waiting at the door. I am detaining her mother on the lawn, seeking to cheer and compose her spirits, painfully affected by I was glancing over my own that sense of change in the relations | letters, chiefly from patients, with a of child and parent which makes itself suddenly felt by the parent's heart on the day that secures to the child another heart on which to lean.

But Mrs. Ashleigh's was one of those gentle womanly natures which, if easily afflicted, are easily consoled. And, already smiling through her tears, she was about to quit me and join her daughter, when one of the inn-servants came to me with some letters, which had just been delivered by the postman. As I took them from the servant, Mrs. Ashleigh asked if there were any for her? She expected one from her housekeeper at L, who had been taken ill in her absence, and about

rapid eye, when a cry of agony, a
cry as if of one suddenly stricken to
the heart, pierced my ear-a cry
from within the house.
"Hea-
vens! was not that Lilian's voice?"
The same doubt struck Mrs. Ash-
leigh, who had already gained the
door. She rushed on, disappearing
within the threshold, and calling to
me to follow. I bounded forward-
passed her on the stairs-was in
Lilian's room before her.

My bride was on the floor, prostrate, insensible: so still, so colourless! that my first dreadful thought was that life had gone. In her hand was a letter, crushed, as with a con-vulsive sudden grasp.

It was long before the colour

not, nor her mother. She spoke little and faintly; in the words she uttered there was no reason.

came back to her cheek, before the breath was perceptible on her lip. She woke, but not to health,'not to sense. Hours were passed in violent I pass hurriedly on; my expericonvulsions, in which I momently ence here was in fault, my skill feared her death. To these suc- ineffectual. Day followed day, and ceeded stupor, lethargy, not benig- no ray came back to the darkened nant sleep. That night, my bridal brain. We bore her, by gentle night, I passed as in some chamber stages, to London. I was sanguine to which I had been summoned to of good result from skill more consave youth from the grave. At summate than mine, and more length-at length, life was rescued, specially devoted to diseases of the was assured! Life came back, but mind. I summoned the first adthe mind was gone. She knew me visers. In vain !—in vain!

CHAPTER LXIII.

AND the cause of this direful shock?
Not this time could it be traced to
some evil spell, some phantasmal
influence. The cause was clear, and
might have produced effects as sin-
ister on nerves of stronger fibre if
accompanied by a heart as delicately
sensitive, an honour as exquisitely had heretofore conceived.
pure.

all that the letter expressed or im-
plied, to wither the orange blossoms
in a bride's wreath. The heart that
took in the venom cast its poison on
the brain, and the mind fled before
the presence of a thought so deadly
to all the ideas which its innocence

The letter found in her hand was without name; it was dated from L, and bore the postmark of that town. It conveyed to Lilian, in the biting words which female malice can make so sharp, the tale we had sought sedulously to guard from her ear-her flight, the construction that scandal put upon it. It affected for my blind infatuation a contemptuous pity; it asked her to pause before she brought on the name I offered to her an indelible disgrace. If she so decided, she was warned not to return to L

I knew not whom to suspect of the malignity of this mean and miserable outrage, nor did I much care to know. The handwriting, though evidently disguised, was that of a woman, and, therefore, had I discovered the author, my manhood would have forbidden me the idle solace of revenge. Mrs. Poyntz, however resolute and pitiless her hostility when once aroused, was not without a certain largeness of nature irreconcilable with the most dastardly of all the weapons that envy or hatred can supply to the vile. She had too lofty a self-esteem or to prepare there for the sentence and too decorous a regard for the that would exclude her from the moral sentiment of the world that society of her own sex. I cannot she typified, to do, or connive at, repeat more, I cannot minute down an act which degrades the gentle

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