BY THE AUTHOR OF "RIENZI," "MY NOVEL," ETC. ETC. ETC. "To doubt and to be astonished is to recognize our ignorance. Hence it is that SIR W. HAMILTON (after Aristotle), Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 78. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON, & CO., 47 LUDGATE HILL. 1862. [The Right of Translation is reserved.] 250 .f. 118. A STRANGE STORY. CHAPTER I. THE Lawyer came the next day, and almost with a smile on his lips. He brought me a few lines in pencil from Mrs. Ashleigh; they were kindly expressed, bade me be of good cheer ; "she never for a moment believed in my guilt; Lilian bore up wonderfully under so terrible a trial; it was an unspeakable comfort to both to receive the visits of a friend so attached to me, and so confident of a triumphant refutation of the hideous calumny-under which I now suffered as Mr. Margrave!" The lawyer had seen Margrave again—seen him in that house. Margrave seemed almost domiciled there! I remained sullen and taciturn during this visit. I longed again for the night. Night came. I heard the distant clock strike twelve, when again the icy wind passed through my hair, and against the wall stood the Luminous Shadow. "Have you considered?" whispered the voice, still as from afar. “I repeat it-I alone can save you." VOL. II, B "Is it among the conditions which you ask, in return, that I shall resign to you the woinan I love ?" "No." "Is it one of the conditions that I should commit some crime-a crime perhaps heinous as that of which I am accused ?” "No." "With such reservations, I accept the conditions you may name, provided I, in my turn, may demand one condition from yourself." "Name it." "I ask you to quit this town. I ask you, meanwhile, to cease your visits to the house that holds the woman betrothed to me." "I will cease those visits. And before many days are over, I will quit this town." "Now, then, say what you ask from me. I am prepared to concede it. And not from fear for myself but because I fear for the pure and innocent being who is under the spell of your deadly fascination. This is You command me through my your power over me. love for another. Speak." 66 My conditions are simple. You will pledge yourself to desist from all charge or insinuation against myself, of what nature soever. You will not, when you meet me in the flesh, refer to what you have known of my likeness in the Shadow. You will be invited to the house at which I may be also a guest; you will come ; you will meet and converse with me as guest speaks with guest in the house of a host." "Is that all ?" "It is all." "Then I pledge you my faith; keep your own." "Fear not; sleep secure in the certainty that you will soon be released from these walls." The Shadow waned and faded. Darkness settled back, and a sleep, profound and calm, fell over me. The next day Mr. Stanton again visited me. He had received that morning a note from Mr. Margrave, stating that he had left L-to pursue, in person, an investigation which he had already commenced through another, affecting the man who had given evidence against me, and that, if his hope should prove well founded, he trusted to establish my innocence, and convict the real murderer of Sir Philip Derval. the research he thus volunteered, he had asked for, and obtained, the assistance of the policeman Waby, who, grateful to me for saving the life of his sister, had expressed a strong desire to be employed in my service. In Meanwhile, my most cruel assailant was my old college friend Richard Strahan. For Jeeves had spread abroad Strahan's charge of purloining the memoir which had been intrusted to me; and that accusation had done me great injury in public opinion, because it seemed to give probability to the only motive which ingenuity could ascribe to the foul deed imputed to me. That motive had been first suggested by Mr. Vigors. Cases are on record of men whose life had been previously blameless, who have committed a crime, which seemed to belie their nature, in the monomania of some intense desire. In Spain, a scholar |