in their investigations, but their object was often very much the same as that of every chemist and biologist of the present day.  Take alchemy, again, which is supposed by people generally to have been nothing but an attempt to turn the baser metals into gold.  According to the Rosicrucians, who may be supposed to have known something about it, alchemy was the science of guiding the invisible processes of life for the purpose of attaining certain results in both the physical and spiritual spheres.  Chemistry deals with inanimate substances, alchemy with the principle of life itself.  The highest aim of the alchemist was the evolution of a divine and immortal being out of a mortal and semi-animal man; the development, in short, of all those hidden properties which lie latent in man’s nature.”

“That is a very valuable thing to know,” observed Austin, greatly interested.  “Every day I live, the more I realise the truth that everything we see is on the surface, and that there’s a whole world of machinery—­I can’t think of a better term—­working at the back of it.  It’s like a clock.  The face and the hands are all we see, but it’s the works inside that we can’t see that make it go.”

“Excellently put,” returned St Aubyn.  “There are influences and forces all round us of which we only notice the effects, and how far these forces are intelligent is a very curious question.  I see nothing unscientific myself in the hypothesis that they may be.”

“I wonder!” exclaimed Austin.  “Do you know—­I have had some very funny experiences myself lately, that can’t be explained on any other ground that I can think of.  The first occurred the very day that I was here first.  Would you mind if I told you about them?  Would it bother you very much?”

“On the contrary!  I shall listen with the greatest interest, I assure you,” replied St Aubyn, with a smile.

So Austin began at the beginning, and gave his friend a clear, full, circumstantial account of the three occurrences which had made so deep an impression on his mind.  The story of the bricks riveted the attention of his hearer, who questioned him closely about a number of significant details; then he went on to the incident of Aunt Charlotte’s proposed journey, the mysterious warning he had received, and the desperate measures to which he had been driven to keep her from going out.  St Aubyn shouted with laughter as Austin gravely described how he had locked her up in her bedroom, and how lustily she had banged and screamed to be released before it was too late to catch the train.  The sequel seemed to astonish him, and he fell into a musing silence.