Sclamowsky smiled.

“And who am I?” he continued, still addressing my aunt.

“The Professor Dmitri Sclamowsky.”

“And what is this?” indicating the morocco case.

“My diamonds.”

“You make them a present to me?”

“Yes.”

Sclamowsky opened the case and took out the jewels.

“A handsome present, certainly!” he said, turning to me with a smile.

I was speechless.  There was something so horrible in my dear Aunt Phoebe’s set face and wide open, stony eyes, something so weird in the dim room, with its one miserable lamp; something so mockingly fiendish in Sclamowsky’s glittering eyes as he stood with the diamonds flashing and twinkling in his hands, that though I strove for utterance, I could not succeed in articulating a single word.

“Enough!” at last he said, replacing the diamonds in their case and closing it sharply—­“the experiment is concluded,” and so saying he stepped up close to Aunt Phoebe and made two or three passes with his hands in front of her face.  A quiver ran all over my aunt’s figure.  She swayed and would have fallen if I had not rushed forward and caught her in my arms.

She looked round at me with terror and bewilderment in every feature.

“Where am I, Elizabeth?” she stammered, and then looking round she caught sight of Sclamowsky.  “What is the meaning of this?”

“Never mind, Aunt Phoebe,” I said.  “Come home, and I will tell you all about it.”

Aunt Phoebe passed her hand over her eyes, and as she did so I glanced inquiringly from Sclamowsky’s face to the jewellery case in his hands.  What was to be the end of it all?  I had certainly heard my aunt distinctly give this man her diamonds as a present, but could a gift made under such circumstances hold good for a moment?  He evidently saw the query in my face.

“You judge me even more hastily than did your aunt,” he said.  “She called me an impostor; you think me a rogue and a swindler.  Here are your jewels, madam,” he said, turning to Aunt Phoebe.  “I shall be more than satisfied if the result of this evening’s experiment prove to you that, as your poet says, ’There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”

“I don’t understand it all,” said Aunt Phoebe piteously, as she mechanically took the morocco case into her hands.

“Don’t try to do so now,” I said.  “You must come home with me as quickly as you can;” for I was feverishly anxious to escape from this house—­from this man with this horrible, terrifying power.

He bowed silently to us as I hurried Aunt Phoebe out of the room; but as I was going down the stairs an irresistible impulse came over me to look back.