me the right to speak still further to you. Only say you love me, only say that you will accept my love and be my wife and I will wait your time for the fulfilment of the promise. My life, my hopes, and I believe your happiness, depend upon your consent to be mine."

"Marriage is an invention of some evil-minded person, for the purpose of propagating the race of man, and enjoying the misery of the sufferings of flesh," said a voice close to my ear.

In blank astonishment I turned, and there stood Dr. Delgardo at my elbow, with a cold smile on his features, and a cigar between his finger and thumb.

How had he entered? Neither of us heard the door open and there was no other mode of ingress; the window, which opened on to the garden, was closed, the door was shut, the ceiling had no hole in it; the appearance of the room and the furniture was not in any way altered or disturbed, and I could not make out how he came in without attracting my notice. Still, there stood the doctor and not his ghost. He had overheard my words, and there was nothing for it but to face it out; besides, I now felt bold as a lion, so I said :"Many of us make rash statements of opinion which we often have to withdraw. I no longer think so."

"So be it," was his simple answer, and then he began talking of the weather and the news, just as if he had come into my room to wish me good morning in the ordinary way, and taking no notice at all of Promethia, who remained silent as usual in his presence.

1.CANTILE

LIBRARY

CHAPTER XXIII.

A MID-DAY SLUMBER.

NEW YORK.

I COULD do nothing but fall in with his conversation and acquiesce in his mood, neither did I attempt to get him round to the subject of Promethia, for he seemed utterly unconscious of her presence in the room, and she sat there like a marble figure, without so much as even glancing up

VOL. I.

34

at my face while we were talking. I do not know what I said. He certainly had the best part of such conversation as ensued. I could not think very clearly of the drift of his observations, and my replies at last became merely mechanical, but he showed no irritation or annoyance at this absence of mind; he simply rattled on pleasantly enough, of the news in the papers, of the prospects of foreign and home affairs, of the commercial aspect of the country, of the coming winter, and the anticipated bad weather, which, by a singular circumstance, had not set in that year, though it had been foretold by all those well-known signs given by various trees and animals and so forth, signs which the learned in such matters are always anxious to interpret for the benefit of the public, through the medium of numberless letters to the Times, and publication in three other periodicals, which fill their columns with such communications at the dull season of the year.

After a few moments, however, and apparently finding that I was becoming really too inattentive, he wished me good morning and left the room, without my having been able to ask one question on the subject nearest my heart. He never referred to the conversation he had overheard; he never spoke to, or looked at, Promethia; but walked out of the chamber and left it as silently as he had entered, only that I heard the door open and close behind him.

No sooner had he left than Promethia became all life again. She rose, saying:

'We have talked solemn enough for one morning. I cannot understand at all, but I must wait. Shall I sing?

"No, no, please; my mind is too agitated to think of anything but you, and while that is the case your singing and music would not charm me. Oh, if you had but given me an answer to my question."

"Please, please," she entreated, "be good and let me amuse you."

I did not answer. I let her do as she liked. My mind wandered off to the consideration of how the doctor could possibly have entered the room, and I let my eyes roam over the whole of the chamber around and around, while Promethia took up some music (she had taken to singing

the songs I had mentioned now) and began to touch the piano gently. As I did not interrupt her her touch grew firmer, and presently she began to sing sweetly as was her wont. Her voice soothed me and took me for the time out of myself. She had a great influence over my nerves. Her liquid notes seemed to still the wild beating of my heart, and smoothe down the excited state of my whole system. I sat back in my chair, and, while gazing on the songster, forgot our late conversation, forgot the doctor, forgot the events that had weighed so heavily on my mind, and was content to look and listen and ask no other happiness. Oh, to have her to look at and listen to all through life! would such bliss ever be my portion in this world of sorrow? She did not seem conscious of the full effect of her music over me, but she knew I liked it, and when, having finished the first song (it was: "My mother bids me bind my hair," and she sang with surpassing sweetness), she asked me if she should continue, and what song she should sing, I answered indifferently. I tried to sit up and speak, but while I did so I became gradually aware of a strange sense of weariness and oppression stealing upon and over me. As I looked at the beautiful singer, my eyes closed, my breath grew heavy, my limbs felt faint and weary beneath me, and the room began to spin round and round. I fancied I was going to faint, or die. I tried to scream but could not, and at last I sank off into a slumbrous state, in which I had no consciousness of what was going on around me, but in which I was not dead or actually sleeping.

I may here observe that, rightly or wrongly, I attributed that sleep to a mesmeric influence, and, though I have often tried to reason about the matter, I have never been able to arrive at any other conclusion concerning it. What occurred while I lay there I do not know. I remember a confused sound of voices, one of which was the doctor's, and the other Promethia's; but the subject of their discourse escaped me, and I am uncertain whether or not a third person entered and left the room, and took part in it. I suppose I at last became unconscious, for when I came at all to myself it was late in the day, and I woke slowly.

I did not feel the slightest inclination to eat, though, as a

rule, luncheon was a meal at which I had a fairly good appetite. I was all alone, and in the same room I had occupied in the morning. At first I started up and fancied I only dropped off for a moment, and the darkness of the sky was attributable to clouds or rain; but the clock opposite convinced me that the morning and afternoon were gone, and I was puzzled to account for what had taken place, but I soon began to recover, and rose from my chair. The first sensation which came into my mind was a most singular onemy ear, the right one, and that which in my dream had been threatened by the Vampire Bat tingled strangely. I thought at first I had perhaps been lying on it in the chair, and the pressure had given me a cramp in the organ. But no; it was not that sensation. I went to the glass; I put my hand up to feel it, and could not either, from the reflection or the touch, discover anything unusual, but the feeling became more intense. Surely something had been done to it. I pulled the lobe to see that it was all there in perfect safety, thinking with horror of the strange conduct of the doctor on that first morning, and also of the curious incidents of my terrible dream during the previous night. The flesh was securely fastened to my head, the organ had received no injury, and yet I felt certain that something had been done to it. I looked and looked, and pulled, and rubbed, and tugged, but nothing gave me any indication of events, until I chanced to discover a little bit of a waxy-looking substance lying on the chair in a corner, just near to the spot on which my head had rested while I was sleeping, or dosing, or insensible; it was hard like cobbler's wax, and smelt rather strong of the usual odor of that substance. This find might then give me some clue; the doctor or someone in his establishment had been taking a cast from my ear; the more I thought over it, the more the sensation I experienced seemed to point to the conclusion I have stated.

"Now, what on earth," thought I, "should that doctor want with the cast of my ear, and how did he manage to get me asleep while he took it? Had he purposely administered some opiate to me in my food? If so, I must begin to be careful of what I eat, or I should be poisoned;

and yet, what could be his object? He had no grudge against me, and certainly I was too insignificant an individual to be worth murdering, with the chance of being hanged for the deed. While, on the other hand, if, for experimental purposes, he wanted a cast of my ear on account of its great beauty, all he had to do was to have asked me to allow him to take it."

Yet that something of the kind had been done to me, I felt sure, and that he had succeeded in getting me to sleep for the purpose of taking this liberty with my ear there seemed not a shadow of doubt. Strange that the dream had not been sufficiently forcible to enable me to guard against this intention on his part. Would he next suck my blood like the vampire? I confess I began to think it possible. But what should he do that for? No, no; he might have taken a cast of my ear to add to some model he was making; but to murder me! he would hardly do that. And yet I would be cautious, and distrust the least hostile appearance on his part.

Thinking thus, I pulled myself together, as it were, and mounted to my room to dress for dinner. The shock of a sluice of cold water over my face revived me. I felt appetite returning, and descended into the library prepared to join the doctor at dinner and enjoy it. As I was about to open the door of the room, however, I heard voices within. The doctor was speaking in a louder tone than usual. He said :

"You must leave this, as everything else, to me. I cannot be guided by such considerations as are nowW operating on you, child. Have patience. You know nothing of this as yet. Trust in me, and my love will not allow me to do you wrong."

"But only if—," was the reply in the voice of Promethia, "only if you could do this without altering your plans. Ah, do not treat me so like a far-off thing. I would be near to your thoughts, and I would ask of you to consider my prayer with kindness. Not him! not him! Do not fear I shall do contrary to your wishes. But oh! let him be unhurt."

"Who said I should hurt him? Am I likely? Did I