Again he slipped his hand into his burnoose, again he produced a slip of paper, again he laid it on the shelf, again I glanced at it, again nothing was written on it but a name,—­’Paul Lessingham.’

‘Well?—­I see,—­Paul Lessingham.—­What then?’

‘She is good,—­he is bad,—­is it not so?’

He touched first one scrap of paper, then the other.  I stared.

‘Pray how do you happen to know?’

‘He shall never have her,—­eh?’

‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘Ah!—­what do I mean!’

’Precisely, what do you mean?  And also, and at the same time, who the devil are you?’

‘It is as a friend I come to you.’

’Then in that case you may go; I happen to be over-stocked in that line just now.’

‘Not with the kind of friend I am!’

‘The saints forefend!’

’You love her,—­you love Miss Lindon!  Can you bear to think of him in her arms?’

I took off my mask,—­feeling that the occasion required it As I did so he brushed aside the hanging folds of the hood of his burnoose, so that I saw more of his face.  I was immediately conscious that in his eyes there was, in an especial degree, what, for want of a better term, one may call the mesmeric quality.  That his was one of those morbid organisations which are oftener found, thank goodness, in the east than in the west, and which are apt to exercise an uncanny influence over the weak and the foolish folk with whom they come in contact,—­the kind of creature for whom it is always just as well to keep a seasoned rope close handy.  I was, also, conscious that he was taking advantage of the removal of my mask to try his strength on me,—­than which he could not have found a tougher job.  The sensitive something which is found in the hypnotic subject happens, in me, to be wholly absent.

‘I see you are a mesmerist.’

He started.

‘I am nothing,—­a shadow!’

’And I’m a scientist.  I should like, with your permission—­or without it!—­to try an experiment or two on you.’

He moved further back.  There came a gleam into his eyes which suggested that he possessed his hideous power to an unusual degree,—­that, in the estimation of his own people, he was qualified to take his standing as a regular devil-doctor.

’We will try experiments together, you and I,—­on Paul Lessingham.’

‘Why on him?’

‘You do not know?’

‘I do not.’

‘Why do you lie to me?’

’I don’t lie to you,—­I haven’t the faintest notion what is the nature of your interest in Mr Lessingham.’

’My interest?—­that is another thing; it is your interest of which we are speaking.’

‘Pardon me,—­it is yours.’

’Listen! you love her,—­and he!  But at a word from you he shall not have her,—­never!  It is I who say it,—­I!’

‘And, once more, sir, who are you?’