hear you; that, whether or not you trust in Him, or in your doctor, it
will change by a hairbreadth the thing that must be--do you believe this,
Allen Fenwick?"

And there sat this reader of hearts! a boy in his aspect, mocking me and
the graybeards of schools.

I could listen no more; I turned to the door and fled down the stairs, and
heard, as I fled, a low chant: feeble and faint, it was still the old
barbaric chant, by which the serpent is drawn from its hole by the
charmer.




CHAPTER LXXVII.

To those of my readers who may seek with Julius Faber to explore, through
intelligible causes, solutions of the marvels I narrate, Margrave's
confession may serve to explain away much that my own superstitious
beliefs had obscured. To them Margrave is evidently the son of Louis
Grayle. The elixir of life is reduced to some simple restorative, owing
much of its effect to the faith of a credulous patient: youth is so soon
restored to its joy in the sun, with or without an elixir. To them
Margrave's arts of enchantment are reduced to those idiosyncrasies of
temperament on which the disciples of Mesmer build up their
theories,--exaggerated, in much, by my own superstitions; aided, in part,
by such natural, purely physical magic as, explored by the ancient
priest-crafts, is despised by the modern philosophies, and only remains
occult because Science delights no more in the slides of the lantern which