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power to distract, but never to overcome the strange thoughts that occupied my mind. At the theatre, in the ball-room, I laughed as loudly and enjoyed myself as thoroughly (as, indeed, I can even now at times) as the youngest and gayest there; but as soon as I was left to myself, as soon as the lights were extinguished and the company fled, there invariably returned upon me a feeling which I find it almost impossible to describe a consciousness that I was not alone! I used neither to speak to nor of these invisible nothings that surrounded me, yet I felt that they were there, and I only required to break some chain by which my mortality was fettered-to burst through some barrier that interposed between us, to be able to see and hear and communicate with them as freely as with my fellow - creatures. Go where I would, this idea was never long absent from my mind. I seemed to myself like some unlettered hind whose brain is filled with wild inspirations and poetic imagery which he has no power to put into words.

In their turn I visited France, Germany, Italy, Spain; and it was in the last-named country I first became aware I possessed powers which made me different from the remainder of mankind. I carried letters of introduction to some of the first families in Madrid, and was received everywhere with the utmost hospitality and kindness. At the house of one of the ministers of state I was introduced to his daughter Doña Emilia, a very handsome girl who was betrothed to one of her father's chief friends and councillors, and the festivities for whose marriage were already in course of preparation.

'From the moment I saw this young lady I perceived there was something peculiar in her, or

rather I could not help seeing that she fancied there was something peculiar or attractive in myself, for she never took her eyes off ine. Whether at the dinnertable, in the salon, or during the evening drive, it was always the same. Turn which way I would, Doña Emilia's large dark eyes were constantly fixed upon me, and I knew that it was so even when mine were in the opposite direction. I seemed to possess for her the fascination which snakes are said at times to exercise over birds; and the effect was becoming most unpleasant to myself. I would have sought safety in flight had not my engagements rendered it impossible to me; and fearing lest the Doña's strange behaviour should excite the suspicion and result in the resentment of her father or her betrothed husband, I resolved one day to expostulate with her upon it.

We were alone or as much alone as young unmarried Spanish ladies are ever left with gentlemen-sitting on a couch in the balcony, whither Doña Emilia had followed me, and screened by some large orange-trees in pots from the immediate observation of the party in the salon.

The girl sat at the end of the sofa, her eyes fixed as usual upon mine. I turned uneasily from her gaze and looked in the direction of the courtyard beneath us, where the splashing water from a marble fountain was making pleasant dreamy music in the basin into which it fell.

"You are wondering why I look at you so much," said Doña Emilia in her own language. I started to find she had read my thoughts so accurately.

"I have done so often," I re

plied.

"I cannot help it, Señor. There is something in your eyes

that draws me. In your presence I am not myself."

"But for the sake of your father of Don Manuel-” I commenced hesitatingly.

"I do not think of them-I only think of you," she answered in a sleepy voice, as she laid her hand on mine.

'I was becoming thoroughly alarmed. I rose from the sofa and leaned over the parapet of the verandah.

"You must think of them, Doña," I said almost sternly. "Your behaviour is too strange; it will attract notice."

"I cannot help it, Señor," she replied with apparently the utmost unconcern. "Were I to take my eyes from yours I should fall asleep. You draw my soul from

me. When you leave this house my spirit follows. I cannot choose but obey you. Were you to order me to cast myself from this parapet into the courtyard beneath I should do it."

At these words a new fear assailed me. Hitherto my vanity had made me think the girl was in love with me. Now I began to fear she was insane. In my surprise I spoke my thoughts:

"This is madness, Doña Emilia. You leave but one course open to me to leave you at once and for ever."

'But I was not prepared for the effect of my proposal. The Doña gave a piercing scream.

""Leave me! Mother of God! unsay those words! Ah no! you must not leave me. I cannot part with you-I could not live without your presence. Promise me!-promise me!"

" Her cries had reached the inner salon, and in another moment her father and mother and Don Manuel, her betrothed, were by her side.

"My child! what is the mat

ter?" they exclaimed as they caught the hysterical, half-fainting girl in their arms.

"I am afraid that Doña Emilia is ill," I said hurriedly. "You must allow me to take my leave." And as soon as was possible I hurried from the midst of them and found my way back to my hotel, which was but a very short way from my friend's house.

'What was to be done? How on earth was I to find my way out of the scrape into which the imprudence of my fair friend had drawn me? One thing was certain. By hook or by crook I must contrive to throw over the engagements I had made, and to leave Madrid without encountering her again. My boyish vanity was flattered by my supposed conquest, but I had no wish to requite her father's hospitality by ingratitude, nor to incur his displeasure for a matter in which not a particle of my own feelings was concerned. So anxious was I not to meet the girl again, that I refused to ride or drive that evening, but strolled about the quadrangle of the hotel, smoking cigarettes and ruminating deeply on what had occurred. When dusk came I retired to my sitting-room, which opened on the court, and sat there in the gloom, still deeply thinking and turning over in my mind the arguments I should use, had I the opportunity, to disabuse Doña Emilia's mind of its absurd fatuity. From thinking I soon came to wishing it were possible I could try the effects of my reasoning.

"Were she but here," I thought as I leant back in my chair and delivered up my whole mind to the subject I was contemplating, "how clearly I could point out to her the fearful consequences that would accrue from an indulgence of her present feelings, and the mortification that would inevitably

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'(So, in the ignorant pride of my eighteen years and untouched heart, I argued.)

"The idea of her thinking for one moment of throwing over her marriage with Don Manuel and the brilliant prospects in store for her, for a passion which it would be as dishonourable as impossible for me to return! I wish I could but speak and convince her of her madness-I wish that she were here!"

This wish (to which I had given no utterance) had scarcely passed through my mind the second time, when the sound of a deep sigh roused me from my reverie. I looked up. The dusk had deepened into night, but it was not so dark but that I could perceive a female figure standing at one of the open windows. I rose from my seat. The figure advanced slowly into the room and threw back the mantilá that enveloped her head-when, to my horror, I recognised-more from intuition than sight-the form of Doña Emilia !

'Any one who is acquainted with the rigour of Spanish etiquette with regard to the actions of unmarried women, will understand the feelings that assailed me on the recognition of my visitor.

"Good God!" I exclaimed, my hair standing on my head with fright, "what, in the name of all that is sacred, has brought you here?"

"You did," she replied quietly. "You called me, Señor. How could I choose but come?" "I called you?"

"Yes! I heard your voice. It drew me here! They have a ball at my father's house to-night. They expected you to be present. Some thought they had seen you amongst the dancers, but I knew better. I was dancing. I heard you call me by my name. The sound stopped my feet-I could dance no more. I sent my partner for some refreshments, and as soon as he was gone I slipped away and followed your voice, through the gardens and across the road, until it brought me to you. And now, Señor, what do you want of me?what is it I am to hear?"-and, as though preparing for a long conversation, Doña Emilia cast herself upon the nearest seat. I made her rise again almost roughly.

“Doña, you are mad to have come here! You are risking your reputation and the prospects of your whole life for an idle dream. I never called you. Get up, in the name of Heaven! and go back to your father's house. Do you not know what they would say of you if you were found in my rooms? Do you not know that Don Manuel would require reparation for his outraged honour at the point of the sword, and that you might cause the death of one or both of us for the indulgence of your own folly? Doña, you make me speak harshly to you, but it is for your own good. Go back at once-it is no use your staying here. I do not love you-and I never shall."

"But you called me," she answered dreamily.

"I never called you-it is your own fancy."

"I should not have come had you not called me, Señor. I heard your voice say,' I wish that she were

here!

Come! Come!' and so I came, and as I walked the voice went before me saying, 'Come! Come!' It is you who have controlled me. I have no power of myself. Why should you be angry with me?"

'She was trembling now, and beginning to weep at my displeasure. A thought darted through me: If she fancied I possessed this miraculous power over her, I might influence her in the opposite direction. I resolved to try it.

"You have made a mistake," I said, speaking as authoritatively as I could. "I never wished you to come here. You must go back at once. No! no expostulation! Rise, Doña Emilia, and return to your father's house!"

'I extended my hand as I spoke, and, to my surprise, she obeyed

me.

Fixing her dark eyes with a kind of terror on my countenance, the girl rose from her seat, cast her mantilá about her face again, and retreating before my unflinching gaze, passed slowly through the open window, up the courtyard, and across the road to her father's mansion. I watched her in agony, fearful of my own powers of control and perfectly ignorant in what way they were being exercised. But they proved successful. Doña Emilia disappeared in safety within the portals of her home; nor did she attempt to visit the hotel again; whilst I, unspeakably thankful that her hare-brained escapade had escaped further notice, retired to rest, hoping and praying my ruse might have a lasting effect upon her conduct.

'I rose in the morning resolved to quit Madrid as soon as possible. Before I had breakfasted, my resolution had received fresh impetus from a visit from Father Anselmo, an old Catholic priest and confessor to Doña Emilia's family. He entered my room with a face full

of concern, that told me that he knew all.

"I have seen the Doña Emilia this morning, and she has told me everything," he commenced. "If you are a gentleman and a man of honour, Señor, you will leave this place at once."

"I have every intention to do so," I replied.

"The most dire consequences may follow the neglect of my caution. Were a hint of what has taken place to reach the ears of her father or her betrothed (who might not understand the fatal influence you exercise over this girl as you and I do), it might even have the effect of breaking off Doña Emilia's marriage with Don Manuel, which, for social, political, and religious reasons, would be a deplorable catastrophe."

""I am as fully alive to the importance of my immediate departure as you can be," I answered; "but I should wish you, father, to understand that I am not to blame in this matter; that I have never been base enough to attempt to turn the thoughts of Doña Emilia in my own direction, and that the fatal attachment she appears to have conceived for me is

"One moment, Señor," interrupted the priest. "Do I understand rightly that you suppose the Doña's attraction towards yourself to be due to the workings of an ordinary passion ?”

'I blushed to the roots of my hair.

"However presumptuous it may appear," I stammered, "I cannot but believe it. Her words, her conduct

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""And you mean to insinuate you are unconscious of the mesmeric influence you possess-of the unseen power you wield over your fellow-creatures, and to which I can testify even from the short

time I have spent in your presence this morning?"

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"You are speaking in riddles to me," I said, already heartily ashamed of my first suspicion.

"You may be unaware of it, but it is there. The attraction your presence possesses for the Doña Emilia, Señor, is an attraction more powerful than that of love. The one, her own will might help her to subdue; the other takes her will from her, and substitutes your own. magnetic influence that paralyses the action of her feebler vital current-which would force her, if you so willed it, to follow you to dishonour or the grave."

It is your

"But how can this be, when I have never exercised my will in her behalf?"

"Is that correct? Did you not will her here (though perhaps unconsciously to yourself) last evening?—and when her spirit obeyed the summons, did not your natural alarm cause you once more to exercise your will to drive her from you? Ah! I see you recog⚫ nise your power. It is a dangerous one, Señor! be careful how you exercise it."

"" Then if I remained in Madrid, and willed the girl not to approach me, she would have no ability to do so?"

""True; but her health and spirits would suffer, and she would feel weighed down by a sense of humiliation and oppression. You have remained near her too long already, Señor. Generosity, honour, humanity-every good and virtuous feeling, requires that you should leave her to recover the shock she has received by herself."

"I will; you may depend upon me: but one word, father. Is the mysterious power you tell me I possess a common one?"

"Not in the ordinary accepta

VOL. XXV.-NO. CXLIX.

tion of the word; but commoner than men think for. Many possess it who are never aware of the fact. It lies at the bottom of most of the unaccountable attractions and sympathies we meet with in this world and often what men call undying love-love that is neither to be shaken off nor forgotten-is the mesmeric influence of a stronger mind over a weaker It is a fatal gift, my son, only when it is misused. Exercise it but seldom: be careful how, and when, and upon whom; and never exercise it at all except for good. Farewell!"

one.

'And so the father left me to myself.

'I gathered together my belongings; wrote letters of excuse to all my friends, saying that matters of importance called me back to Italy; left Madrid the same afternoon, and had the happiness, about a month afterwards, to read in the papers of the festivities held on the occasion of the Doña Emilia's marriage to Don Manuel. But the conversation I had held with Father Anselmo did not easily quit my mind.

'Ruminating over it, I could recall numerous instances, hitherto unnoticed, of the mental power I had exercised, even from a child, over the inmates of Castle Valence how servants who had insolently defied my guardians and tutor had become quiet and submissive beneath my gaze; and people whom I believed really disliked and feared me had seemed drawn against their will to make me their confidant and adviser. And beyond all, how my sickly little brother Arthur, to whom I was tenderly attached, would rouse me at night when he was in pain and could not sleep, and ask me just to lay my hand upon his forehead, when he would almost immediately drop off into profound

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