NOVELS

OF

SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON

Library Edition

ROMANCES.

VOL. XLII.

A

STRANGE STORY

AND THE

HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS

BY

SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART.

"To doubt and to be astonished is to recognize our ignorance. Hence
it is that the lover of wisdom is in a certain sort a lover of mythi
(piλóμvłós πws), for the subject of mythi is the astonishing and marvel-
lous."- SIR W. HAMILTON (after Aristotle), Lectures on Metaphysics,
vol. i. p. 78.

LIBRARY EDITION-IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. II.

PHILADELPHIA:

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.

A STRANGE STORY.

CHAPTER XLV.

EXPLANATION, on Faber's part, was short and simple. The nephew whom he designed as the heir to his wealth, had largely outstripped the liberal allowance made to him had incurred heavy debts; and in order to extricate himself from the debts, had plunged into ruinous speculations. Faber had come back to England to save his heir from prison or outlawry, at the expense of more than three-fourths of the destined inheritance. To add to all, the young man had married a young lady without fortune; the uncle only heard of the marriage on arriving in England. The spendthrift was hiding from his creditors in the house of his fatherin-law, in one of the western counties. Faber there sought him; and, on becoming acquainted with his wife, grew reconciled to the marriage, and formed hopes of his nephew's future redemption. He spoke, indeed, (7)