We found no more.  Mr. J——­ burned the tablet and its anathema.  He razed to the foundations the part of the building containing the secret room with the chamber over it.  He had then the courage to inhabit the house himself for a month, and a quieter, better-conditioned house could not be found in all London.  Subsequently he let it to advantage, and his tenant has made no complaints.

A drowning man clutching at a straw—­such is Dr. Fenwick, hero of Bulwer-Lytton’s “Strange Story” when he determines to lend himself to alleged “magic” in the hope of saving his suffering wife from the physical dangers which have succeeded her mental disease.  The proposition has been made to him by Margrave, a wanderer in many countries, who has followed the Fenwicks from England to Australia.  Margrave declares that he needs an accomplice to secure an “elixir of life” which his own failing strength demands.  His mysterious mesmeric or hypnotic influence over Mrs. Fenwick had in former days been marked; and on the basis of this undeniable fact, he has endeavored to show that his own welfare and Mrs. Fenwick’s are, in some occult fashion, knit together, and that only by aiding him in some extraordinary experiment can the physician snatch his beloved Lilian from her impending doom.

As the first chapter opens, Fenwick is learning his wife’s condition from his friend, Dr. Faber.

Bulwer-Lytton

The Incantation

I

“I believe that for at least twelve hours there will be no change in her state.  I believe also that if she recover from it, calm and refreshed, as from a sleep, the danger of death will have passed away.”

“And for twelve hours my presence would be hurtful?”

“Rather say fatal, if my diagnosis be right.”

I wrung my friend’s hand, and we parted.

Oh, to lose her now; now that her love and her reason had both returned, each more vivid than before!  Futile, indeed, might be Margrave’s boasted secret; but at least in that secret was hope.  In recognized science I saw only despair.

And at that thought all dread of this mysterious visitor vanished—­ all anxiety to question more of his attributes or his history.  His life itself became to me dear and precious.  What if it should fail me in the steps of the process, whatever that was, by which the life of my Lilian might be saved!

The shades of evening were now closing in.  I remembered that I had left Margrave without even food for many hours.  I stole round to the back of the house, filled a basket with elements more generous than those of the former day; extracted fresh drugs from my stores, and, thus laden, hurried back to the hut.  I found Margrave in the room below, seated on his mysterious coffer, leaning his face on his hand.  When I entered, he looked up, and said: