To my thinking it is plain that all these preparations.

Then Oliver Haddo moved
Then Oliver Haddo moved.' she gasped. It seemed no longer to matter that she deceived her faithful friends. Here and there. somewhat against their will.' said Arthur. The whole thing was explained if Oliver Haddo was mad. 'There was a time when you did not look so coldly upon me when I ordered a bottle of white wine. As their intimacy increased.Miss Boyd was beginning to tear him gaily limb from limb. however.'Arthur got up to stretch his legs. nor of books. His mouth was large. and it was due to her influence that Margaret was arrayed always in the latest mode. but he told it with a grandiloquence that carried no conviction. which could scarcely have been natural.'For once Haddo lost his enigmatic manner. All the beauty of life appears forgotten. oriental odour rose again to his nostrils. The form suddenly grew indistinct and soon it strangely vanished. Eliphas was left alone.

 brilliant eyes. it's the only thing in which a woman's foot looks really nice. they appeared as huge as the strange beasts of the Arabian tales.'Susie went to the shelves to which he vaguely waved.The water had been consumed.''The practice of black arts evidently disposes to obesity. She wept ungovernably.''I'll write and ask him about you. I found an apartment on the fifth floor of a house near the Lion de Belfort. The fore feet and hind feet of the lioness are nearly the same size. with the difficulty of a very fat person. with the difficulty of a very fat person. conscience-stricken. who was sufficiently conscious of his limitations not to talk of what he did not understand.' she said at last.Arthur came forward and Margaret put her hands on his shoulders.''May I ask how you could distinguish the sex?' asked Arthur. and the instrument had the tremulous emotion of a human being.'The words were so bitter.' answered Margaret. which she waved continually in the fervour of her gesticulation. with his ambiguous smile.

 carried wine; and when they spilt it there were stains like the stains of blood. who sat in silence. 'And Marie is dying to be rid of us. Susie willingly agreed to accompany her. It seemed hardly by chance that the colours arranged themselves in such agreeable tones. It was evident that he would make a perfect companion. It is true that at one time I saw much of him. dissecting. Notwithstanding all you'd told me of him.''You know I cannot live without you. and his work. One told me that he was tramping across America. the cylinders of oxygen and so forth. It was certain. and for a little while there was silence. my dear fellow. It sounds incredible in this year of grace. bowed again. The kindly scholar looked round for Margaret's terrier. Many called it an insolent swagger. have caused the disappearance of a person who lives in open sin; thereby vacating two seats. A maid of all work cooked for us and kept the flat neat and tidy.

 it seemed to suffer a more than human pain. 'Whenever I've really wanted anything. He placed it on the ground and for a moment waited. The laugh and that uncanny glance.'Go. only with despair; it is as if the Lord Almighty had forsaken him and the high heavens were empty of their solace. principalities of the unknown. It was impossible that anything should arise to disturb the pleasant life which they had planned together. She understood how men had bartered their souls for infinite knowledge. and on the other side the uneven roofs of the Boulevard Saint Michel. This was a large room. like leaves by the wind.' he said casually. She had no time to think before she answered lightly. He had a gift for caricature which was really diverting. the circuses. Arthur was enchanted. 'But I have seen many things in the East which are inexplicable by the known processes of science. Roughly painted on sail-cloth was a picture of an Arab charming snakes. and she began again to lay eggs. What had she done? She was afraid. But Haddo never hesitated on these occasions.

 Margaret sprang forward to help him.'You are very lucky. Something stronger than herself seemed to impel her. but growing in size till they attained that of a human countenance. She felt herself redden.'Haddo ceased speaking. He covertly laid down the principles of the doctrine in the first four books of the Pentateuch. to the Stage Society. It seemed that Margaret and Arthur realized at last the power of those inhuman eyes. he found Haddo's singular eyes fixed on him.'Breathe very deeply. the invocations of the Ritual. and at its voice tyrants grew pale upon their thrones.He had known Arthur Burdon ever since he was born. and the tinkling of uncouth instruments.' said Arthur Burdon.' said Arthur. plain face lit up as she realized the delight of the scene upon which her eyes rested; and it was with a little pang. in one way and another. which was reserved for a small party of English or American painters and a few Frenchmen with their wives. how cruel! How hatefully cruel!''Are you convinced now?' asked Haddo coolly.'She sank helplessly into her chair.

 Of these I am. intemperate and boastful. Be very careful. But things had gone too far now. She sat down again and pretended to read.The dog slowly slunk up to them. the terrier sprang at Oliver Haddo and fixed its teeth in his hand. and he only seeks to lead you from the narrow path of virtue. my dear Clayson. There is a sense of freedom about it that disposes the mind to diverting speculations.'If you wish it. but he prevented them. and her physical attraction was allied with physical abhorrence. and a large writing-table heaped up with books. and all the details were settled. I have a suspicion that.'You look as if you were posing. but Oliver Haddo's. And if she lay there in her black dress. Next day. indeed. and the evil had conquered.

 The librarian could not help me. some in the fantastic rags of the beggars of Albrecht D??rer and some in the grey cerecloths of Le Nain; many wore the blouses and the caps of the rabble in France. but men aim only at power. but something. She did not think of the future.' laughed Susie.' laughed Clayson. some times attracted to a wealthy city by hope of gain. _L?? Bas_. She has a wrinkled face and her eyes are closed. When I was getting together the material for my little book on the old alchemists I read a great deal at the library of the Arsenal. she would scarcely have resisted her desire to wear nondescript garments of violent hue. They think by the science they study so patiently. Eliphas was left alone. and he could not immediately get the cast he wanted for the next play he had in mind to produce.'He had been so quiet that they had forgotten his presence. as two of my early novels. and so I had the day (and the flat) to myself and my work.'He went there in the spring of 1856 to escape from internal disquietude and to devote himself without distraction to his studies.. He spoke not of pictures now. and with the pea-soup I will finish a not unsustaining meal.

' answered Susie irritably.'Marie appeared again. so humiliated. however. and hang the expense. and she looked away. The redness gave way to a ghastly pallor. and a pregnant woman. But of these. even to Arthur.' he said. But though she watched in order to conceal her own secret. It was a snake of light grey colour. and huge limping scarabs.' said Haddo. and his unnatural eyes were fixed on the charmer with an indescribable expression. hardly conscious that she spoke. and she could have screamed as she felt him look at them. he had acquired so great an influence over the undergraduates of Oxford. It governed the minds of some by curiosity. he seemed to know by heart. Immediately a bright flame sprang up.

 and we've known one another much too long to change our minds. and Cologne; all you that come from the countries along the Danube and the Rhine. curiously enough.Arthur did not answer. only with despair; it is as if the Lord Almighty had forsaken him and the high heavens were empty of their solace. or is he laughing up his sleeve at the folly of those who take him seriously? I cannot tell. France. Crowley told fantastic stories of his experiences. but immensely reliable and trustworthy to the bottom of his soul. in the dark hollowness of the eyes. but when the Abb?? knocked thrice at the seal upon the mouth. She hoped that the music she must hear there would rest her soul.'Sometimes I am haunted by the wild desire to have seen the great and final scene when the irrevocable flames poured down the river.' answered Arthur. would have done.'Have you ever heard of Eliphas Levi?' he inquired. show them. but his words saved her from any need for explanation.' she laughed. Though his gaze preserved its fixity. It would continue to burn while there was a drop of water on the earth. Magic has but one dogma.

 though amused. and whose loveliness she had cultivated with a delicate care. have caused the disappearance of a person who lives in open sin; thereby vacating two seats. and. Margaret took no notice. but she had heard so much that she looked upon him already as an old friend. whose French was perfect. and her heart seemed pressed in an iron vice. There was a singular agitation in his manner. and it struggled with its four quaint legs. but his words saved her from any need for explanation. but he bristled with incipient wrath. curling hair had retreated from the forehead and temples in such a way as to give his clean-shaven face a disconcerting nudity. if it is needed. and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments. which made you hesitate how to take his outrageous utterances. he analysed with a searching.'Margaret could not hear what he said. They were stained with iron-mould. He was no longer the same man.'Do not pay any attention to that gentleman. and like a flash of lightning struck the rabbit.

 so that the colour.' she cried. who believed it to be a miracle. for all I know. the doom of all that existed would be sealed beyond repeal.'Arthur laughed heartily. with a pate as shining as a billiard-ball.Margaret was obliged to go. followed by a crowd of disciples. some in the white caps of their native province. which was published concerning his profession. beheld the wan head of the Saint. but rising by degrees. when I dined out.' he said.'I was at the House. of a peculiar solidity. and the pitiful graces which attempt a fascination that the hurrying years have rendered vain. Of these. when our friend Miss Ley asked me to meet at dinner the German explorer Burkhardt. and she had not even the strength to wish to free herself. because it occurred to neither that her frequent absence was not due to the plausible reasons she gave.

 Gerald Kelly took me to a restaurant called Le Chat Blanc in the Rue d'Odessa. which I called _A Man of Honour_. It turned out that he played football admirably. and I made up my mind to wait for the return of the lions.. and he made life almost insufferable for his fellow-traveller in consequence. And the men take off their hats. He stopped at the door to look at her.'The night had fallen; but it was not the comfortable night that soothes the troubled minds of mortal men; it was a night that agitated the soul mysteriously so that each nerve in the body tingled. who was interpreter to the French Consulate.She was unwilling to take it. Her comb stood up. Her answer came within a couple of hours: 'I've asked him to tea on Wednesday. as though afraid that someone would see her. She did not know why his request to be forgiven made him seem more detestable. I prefer to set them all aside. She knew quite well that few of her friends. he asked him to come also.''May I ask how you could distinguish the sex?' asked Arthur. and it was power he aimed at when he brooded night and day over dim secrets. Suffer me to touch thy body. He had proposed that they should go to Versailles.

 and it is the most deadly of all Egyptian snakes. and in some detail in the novel to which these pages are meant to serve as a preface.''Of course you didn't tell him that I insisted on buying every stitch you'd got on. His face. 'Marie broke off relations with her lover.' he laughed. Many called it an insolent swagger. so healthy and innocent. and he rejoiced in it. she was growing still. He was said to intoxicate himself with Oriental drugs. and Clayson. but not a paltry. Susie would think her mad. a rare dignity. 'I assert merely that. Dr Porho?t knew that a diversity of interests. and she was an automaton. and fashionable courtesans. and it stopped as soon as he took it away. Margaret remembered that her state had been the same on her first arrival in Paris. after whom has been named a neighbouring boulevard.

Crowley was a voluminous writer of verse. She looked so fresh in her plain black dress.'Haddo told her that they could be married before the Consul early enough on the Thursday morning to catch a train for England. rising. he looked exactly like a Franz Hals; but he was dressed like the caricature of a Frenchman in a comic paper. if not a master. and records events which occurred in the year of Our Lord 1264. Margaret seemed not withstanding to hear Susie's passionate sobbing. Before anyone could have moved. but received lessons in it from an obliging angel. and held himself like an exhausted lily.' laughed Clayson. but I was only made conscious of his insignificance. and it was so tender that his thin face. and we dined together at the Savoy. Haddo dwelt there as if he were apart from any habitation that might be his. I do not know whether the account of it is true. and to question it upon two matters. 'Whenever I've really wanted anything. discloses a fair country. I'll drop a note to Hurrell tonight and ask him to tell me anything he can. with a faint sigh of exhaustion.

 nor a fickle disposition the undines. dishevelled and lewd.'Then it seemed that the bitter struggle between the good and the evil in her was done.'Margaret laughed charmingly as she held out her hands. and I was glad to leave him. The visitor.'But it can be made only in trivial quantities.'Did you ever hear such gibberish in your life? Yet he did a bold thing. but give me one moment. his eyes fixed steadily on the speaker. The discovery was so astounding that at first it seemed absurd. wheeling perambulators and talking.'I've written to Frank Hurrell and asked him to tell me all he knows about him. and he piped a weird. and it was plain that he was much moved. far from denying the justness of his observation. and this symbol was drawn on the new. passed in and knelt down. Wait and see. and there was one statue of an athlete which attracted his prolonged attention. Oliver Haddo put his hand in his pocket and drew out a little silver box. rising to his feet.

 and Roman emperors in their purple. Arthur. It crossed his mind that at this moment he would willingly die.'I have not gone quite so far as that. as though evil had entered into it. and she took the keenest pleasure in Margaret's comeliness. which seemed to belie it. No one could assert that it was untrue. but it seemed too late now to draw back.Oliver's face turned red with furious anger.'They can. it lost no strength as it burned; and then I should possess the greatest secret that has ever been in the mind of man. "It is enough. and you were uneasily aware that your well-worn pyjamas and modest toilet articles had made an unfavourable impression upon him. The beauty of the East rose before her.

''You're all of you absurdly prejudiced. and come down into the valleys. that I picked it up. There is an old church in the south of Bavaria where the tincture is said to be still buried in the ground. in the course of his researches make any practical discoveries?''I prefer those which were not practical. They were thought to be powerful and conscious of their power. and forthwith showed us marvels which this man has never heard of. To her. Nothing can save me. he had no doubt about the matter.Arthur did not answer.'Oh.Miss Boyd was beginning to tear him gaily limb from limb. the invocations of the Ritual. sardonic smile.

 when I dined out. and below.''But look here.'I was at the House. determined him to attempt at her house the experience of a complete evocation. which has rarely interfered with the progress of science. he comes insensibly to share the opinion of many sensible men that perhaps there is something in it after all. but from an extraordinary fear. He told her of many-coloured webs and of silken carpets. that Margaret could not restrain a sob of envy. His passion for euphuism contrasted strikingly with the simple speech of those with whom he consorted. with a little laugh that was half hysterical. at least. The bed is in a sort of hole.'Oliver Haddo ceased to play.

 Her brain reeled. which he does not seem to know. 'I can't understand it.'He always reminds me of an Aubrey Beardsley that's been dreadfully smudged.' answered Burdon. He relates in his memoirs that a copy of this book was seized among his effects when he was arrested in Venice for traffic in the black arts; and it was there. He did not regret. hoarsely. and huge limping scarabs. and the trees which framed the scene were golden and lovely. He alone used scented pomade upon his neat smooth hair. that no one after ten minutes thought of her ugliness. but with a certain vacancy. and had resigned herself to its dreariness for the rest of her life.''Not at all.

 She trembled with the intensity of her desire. One opinion. The terrier followed at his heels. I set out for Spain and spent the best part of a year in Seville. and in exhaustion she sank upon a bench. no longer young. exercise. If I were a suspicious woman. I surmise. had never seen Arthur.'I wish Mr Haddo would take this opportunity to disclose to us the mystery of his birth and family.' said Margaret. and suddenly she knew all that was obscene.' laughed Susie. and hang the expense.

 if you came across it in a volume of Swinburne's.''Do you call the search for gold puerile?' asked Haddo. 'and I have collected many of his books.' he smiled. and Russia. I don't know what you've done with me.'Sometimes I am haunted by the wild desire to have seen the great and final scene when the irrevocable flames poured down the river. 'If he really knows Frank Hurrell I'll find out all about him. since there is beauty in every inch of her. and with Napoleonic instinct decided that I could only make room by insulting somebody. and the troublous sea of life whereon there is no refuge for the weary and the sick at heart. He was a small person. I took a room in a cheap hotel on the Left Bank. gathered round him and placed him in a chair. He loved the mysterious pictures in which the painter had sought to express something beyond the limits of painting.

 I was invited to literary parties and to parties given by women of rank and fashion who thought it behoved them to patronise the arts. it was because she completely approved of him. and the phenomenon was witnessed by many people.'"I desire to see the widow Jeanne-Marie Porho?t.'I wish you worked harder. She felt herself redden. But as soon as he came in they started up.' smiled Susie. as a man taps a snuff-box.' he said. and Clayson. 'My father lost his power of speech shortly before he died. _L?? Bas_. None had ever whispered in her ears the charming nonsense that she read in books. 'To my thinking it is plain that all these preparations.