’It was a strange dream that these wizards cherished.  They sought to make themselves beloved of those they cared for and to revenge themselves on those they hated; but, above all, they sought to become greater than the common run of men and to wield the power of the gods.  They hesitated at nothing to gain their ends.  But Nature with difficulty allows her secrets to be wrested from her.  In vain they lit their furnaces, and in vain they studied their crabbed books, called up the dead, and conjured ghastly spirits.  Their reward was disappointment and wretchedness, poverty, the scorn of men, torture, imprisonment, and shameful death.  And yet, perhaps after all, there may be some particle of truth hidden away in these dark places.’

‘You never go further than the cautious perhaps,’ said Susie.  ’You never give me any definite opinion.’

‘In these matters it is discreet to have no definite opinion,’ he smiled, with a shrug of the shoulders.  ’If a wise man studies the science of the occult, his duty is not to laugh at everything, but to seek patiently, slowly, perseveringly, the truth that may be concealed in the night of these illusions.’

The words were hardly spoken when Matilde, the ancient bonne, opened the door to let a visitor come in.  It was Arthur Burdon.  Susie gave a cry of surprise, for she had received a brief note from him two days before, and he had said nothing of crossing the Channel.

‘I’m glad to find you both here,’ said Arthur, as he shook hands with them.

‘Has anything happened?’ cried Susie.

His manner was curiously distressing, and there was a nervousness about his movements that was very unexpected in so restrained a person.

‘I’ve seen Margaret again,’ he said.

‘Well?’

He seemed unable to go on, and yet both knew that he had something important to tell them.  He looked at them vacantly, as though all he had to say was suddenly gone out of his mind.

‘I’ve come straight here,’ he said, in a dull, bewildered fashion.  ’I went to your hotel, Susie, in the hope of finding you; but when they told me you were out, I felt certain you would be here.’

‘You seem worn out, cher ami,’ said Dr Porhoet, looking at him.  ’Will you let Matilde make you a cup of coffee?’

‘I should like something,’ he answered, with a look of utter weariness.

’Sit still for a minute or two, and you shall tell us what you want to when you are a little rested.’

Dr Porhoet had not seen Arthur since that afternoon in the previous year when, in answer to Haddo’s telegram, he had gone to the studio in the Rue Campagne Premiere.  He watched him anxiously while Arthur drank his coffee.  The change in him was extraordinary; there was a cadaverous exhaustion about his face, and his eyes were sunken in their sockets.  But what alarmed the good doctor most was that Arthur’s personality seemed thoroughly thrown out of gear.  All that he had endured during these nine months had robbed him of the strength of purpose, the matter-of-fact sureness, which had distinguished him.  He was now unbalanced and neurotic.