‘How shall I find it?  I know nothing of his house.’

The question was wrung from me; I felt that the sweat was standing in great drops upon my brow.

‘I will show it you.’

‘Shall you go with me?’

’Ay,—­I shall go with you.  All the time I shall be with you.  You will not see me, but I shall be there.  Be not afraid.’

His claim to supernatural powers, for what he said amounted to nothing less, was, on the face of it, preposterous, but, then, I was in no condition to even hint at its absurdity.  He continued.

’When you have gained the study, you will go to a certain drawer, which is in a certain bureau, in a corner of the room—­I see it now; when you are there you shall see it too—­and you will open it.’

‘Should it be locked?’

‘You still will open it.’

‘But how shall I open it if it is locked?’

’By those arts in which a thief is skilled.  I say to you again that that is your affair, not mine.’

I made no attempt to answer him.  Even supposing that he forced me, by the wicked, and unconscionable exercise of what, I presumed, were the hypnotic powers with which nature had to such a dangerous degree endowed him, to carry the adventure to a certain stage, since he could hardly, at an instant’s notice, endow me with the knack of picking locks, should the drawer he alluded to be locked —­which might Providence permit!—­nothing serious might issue from it after all.  He read my thoughts.

’You will open it,—­though it be doubly and trebly locked, I say that you will open it.—­In it you will find—­’ he hesitated, as if to reflect—­’some letters; it may be two or three,—­I know not just how many,—­they are bound about by a silken ribbon.  You will take them out of the drawer, and, having taken them, you will make the best of your way out of the house, and bear them back to me.’

’And should anyone come upon me while engaged in these nefarious proceedings,—­for instance, should I encounter Mr Lessingham himself, what then?’

‘Paul Lessingham?—­You need have no fear if you encounter him.’

’I need have no fear!—­If he finds me, in his own house, at dead of night, committing burglary!’

‘You need have no fear of him.’

’On your account, or on my own?—­At least he will have me haled to gaol.’

‘I say you need have no fear of him.  I say what I mean.’

’How, then, shall I escape his righteous vengeance?  He is not the man to suffer a midnight robber to escape him scatheless,—­shall I have to kill him?’

‘You will not touch him with a finger,—­nor will he touch you.’

‘By what spell shall I prevent him?’

‘By the spell of two words.’

‘What words are they?’

’Should Paul Lessingham chance to come upon you, and find you in his house, a thief, and should seek to stay you from whatever it is you may be at, you will not flinch nor flee from him, but you will stand still, and you will say—­’