Part 36 (1/2)

”I must, while yet sensible of the power that has pa.s.sed to your hand.”

”Is it by some occult magnetic property in this wand that you have exercised so demoniac an influence over a creature so pure as Lilian Ashleigh?”

”By that wand and by other arts which you could not comprehend.”

”And for what infamous object,--her seduction, her dishonour?”

”No! I sought in her the aid of a gift which would cease did she cease to be pure. At first I but cast my influence upon her that through her I might influence yourself. I needed your help to discover a secret.

Circ.u.mstances steeled your mind against me. I could no longer hope that you would voluntarily lend yourself to my will. Meanwhile, I had found in her the light of a loftier knowledge than that of your science; through that knowledge, duly heeded and cultivated, I hoped to divine what I cannot of myself discover. Therefore I deepened over her mind the spells I command; therefore I have drawn her hither as the loadstone draws the steel, and therefore I would have borne her with me to the sh.o.r.es to which I was about this night to sail. I had cast the inmates of the house and all around it into slumber, in order that none might witness her departure; had I not done so, I should have summoned others to my aid, in spite of your threat.”

”And would Lilian Ashleigh have pa.s.sively accompanied you, to her own irretrievable disgrace?”

”She could not have helped it; she would have been unconscious of her acts; she was, and is, in a trance; nor, had she gone with me, would she have waked from that state while she lived; that would not have been long.”

”Wretch! and for what object of unhallowed curiosity do you exert an influence which withers away the life of its victim?”

”Not curiosity, but the instinct of self-preservation. I count on no life beyond the grave. I would defy the grave, and live on.”

”And was it to learn, through some ghastly agencies, the secret of renewing existence, that you lured me by the shadow of your own image on the night when we met last?”

The voice of Margrave here became very faint as he answered me, and his countenance began to exhibit the signs of an exhaustion almost mortal.

”Be quick,” he murmured, ”or I die. The fluid which emanates from that wand, in the hand of one who envenoms that fluid with his own hatred and rage, will prove fatal to my life. Lower the wand from my forehead!

low--low,--lower still!”

”What was the nature of that rite in which you constrained me to share?”

”I cannot say. You are killing me. Enough that you were saved from a great danger by the apparition of the protecting image vouchsafed to your eye; otherwise you would--you would--Oh, release me! Away! away!”

The foam gathered to his lips; his limbs became fearfully convulsed.

”One question more: where is Lilian at this moment? Answer that question, and I depart.”

He raised his head, made a visible effort to rally his strength, and gasped out,--

”Yonder. Pa.s.s through the open s.p.a.ce up the cliff, beside a thorn-tree; you will find her there, where she halted when the wand dropped from my hand. But--but--beware! Ha! you will serve me yet, and through her! They said so that night, though you heard them not. They said it!” Here his face became death-like; he pressed his hand on his heart, and shrieked out, ”Away! away! or you are my murderer!”

I retreated to the other end of the room, turning the wand from him, and when I gained the door, looked back; his convulsions had ceased, but he seemed locked in a profound swoon.

I left the room,--the house,--paused by Waby; he was still sleeping.

”Awake!” I said, and touched him with the wand. He started up at once, rubbed his eyes, began stammering out excuses. I checked them, and bade him follow me. I took the way up the open ground towards which Margrave had pointed the wand, and there, motionless, beside a gnarled fantastic thorn-tree, stood Lilian. Her arms were folded across her breast; her face, seen by the moonlight, looked so innocent and so infantine, that I needed no other evidence to tell me how unconscious she was of the peril to which her steps had been drawn. I took her gently by the hand. ”Come with me,” I said in a whisper, and she obeyed me silently, and with a placid smile.

Rough though the way, she seemed unconscious of fatigue. I placed her arm in mine, but she did not lean on it. We got back to the town. I obtained there an old chaise and a pair of horses. At morning Lilian was under her mother's roof. About the noon of that day fever seized her; she became rapidly worse, and, to all appearance, in imminent danger.

Delirium set in; I watched beside her night and day, supported by an inward conviction of her recovery, but tortured by the sight of her sufferings. On the third day a change for the better became visible; her sleep was calm, her breathing regular.

Shortly afterwards she woke out of danger. Her eyes fell at once on me, with all their old ineffable tender sweetness.