THE
STRANGE
TRANSFIGURATION
OF
HANNAH STUBBS

“Signor Ricardo, Prof. of the Italian Language!” That was the legend that was engraved on the small brass plate that surmounted the bell that admitted visitors to Mrs. Battleby’s lodging-house in Soho. Signor Ricardo was everything that was estimable in Mrs. Battleby’s eyes, only he was, as she observed to her next-door neighbour, Mrs. Blamey, “a Mystery”. He was a tall, attenuated man, who stooped slightly in the shoulders—had dark-grey eyes, keen as those of a hawk, and shaded by bushy eyebrows—a perfect aquiline nose—and a grave, almost solemn mouth, which seldom smiled, and ended in a pointed beard, like that of Vandyke. He was very poor, being an Italian refugee, whose estates had been confiscated for some political error, but he was eminently a gentleman of the ancienne noblesse, and preserved the dignity of his birth, even whilst pursuing an occupation which is considered to place a man beyond the pale of Society.

“He’s as good a lodger as ever I had,” said Mrs. Battleby, on the occasion referred to, “as reglar as a clock, both in his ’abits and his payments—every Saturday mornin’ he dislocates my little bill, though I believe he’s sometimes sorely put-to to find the money, and every evenin’ he’s ’ome by eight o’clock and has his bit of supper and puts his light out by ten, but arter that—well! he’s a Mystery!”

“Lor! Mrs. Battleby, ma’am, you don’t go to think he’s murdered anybody, do yer?”

“Murdered anybody!” repeated the other, with withering contempt, “why, he’s the aimabeloust gentleman you ever come acrost. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, the Sig-nor” (Mrs. Battleby pronounced the word Signor, with a decided accentuation on the letter g), “not to save his own life! And got no temper in him. Never ’eard a ’arsh word, nor a hoath pass his lips. If you’d only seen him onst, you’d never arsk if he was a murderer, Mrs. Blamey!”

“Then ’ow is he a Mystery, which it’s a word I never could abear.”

“Well! it’s this way. When the Sig-nor come to me, now three years ago, he hired three rooms at the top of the ’ouse. I had better rooms I could have let him ’ave, on the floor below, but no! nothing would suit him but my top rooms, hattics as I call ’em, and I had to turn Mary Ann—that gal as went off with the postman—out of her bedroom in order to accommodate him, and he’s lived there ever since. One is his bedroom and the other his parlour, as you may suppose, but would you believe it, Mrs. Blamey, as I’ve never seen the inside of my own third room, ever since the Sig-nor has been with me!”

“My! what do he do with it?”

“ ’Ow can I tell? I tell you he’s a Mystery! The first day I went up to clean his floor, I found the door locked, and when I arsked for the key, the Sig-nor he says to me, ‘Excuge me,’ he says, for he’s the politest of gentlemen, ‘but I will see after that room myself.’ ‘Lor! Sir,’ I says, ‘but if it’s books or papers, I’ll be as careful as careful,’ I says, ‘but you can’t never struggle with the dust yourself.’ But he was as firm as a rock, and that there door has never been unclosed to my knowledge since.”

“Mrs. Battleby, ma’am, you gives me the cold creeps all down my back! Suppose he should be Jack the Ripper, and congeals the corpusses in your third room. Stranger things ’ave ’appened before now! I think it be’oves you as an ’ouseholder to break open the door!”

At this suggestion, Mrs. Battleby looked for a moment confounded, but in a short time her confidence in the respectability of her lodger, not to say the remembrance of his regularity in paying his rent, restored her equanimity.

“No! Mrs. Blamey, no!” she replied, “wild ’orses shouldn’t make me do it! I’ll never believe no bad of the Sig-nor, though he is a foreigner, and many’s the one as has warned me against him. And he has the respectablelest of friends. Doctor Steinberg is here five days out of the seven, and I’ve heard tell as the Sig-nor teaches Royalty to speak the I-talian langwidge. In course he is a foreigner, there’s no denying that, but it ain’t ’is fault, and I’d be the last to throw it in his teeth! But lor! here’s the Doctor coming along as usual, and he and the Sig-nor will be closeted for hours together.”

The conversation was here interrupted by the arrival of a young man of about thirty, who had fair hair, worn longer than is usual in this country, and whose short-sighted eyes appeared abnormally large through the powerful glasses he was compelled to wear. He was a German of the name of Steinberg, and the profession of medicine—a clever fellow who was rising fast, and knew how to make the best of his opportunities. He was interested in Signor Ricardo for several reasons, and was, as Mrs. Battleby had said, a frequent visitor there.

“Is the Signor in?” he demanded, as he came up with her.

“Yes, Sir! he came in half an hour ago. You might be sure of that! He is so regular that I calls him my clock.”

“And alone?” continued Steinberg.

“Quite alone, Sir!”

“Very good! Don’t disturb yourself, Mrs. Battleby. I will find my way up to his rooms.”

And so saying, he passed her and ran lightly up the stairs.

“Anyways I must go,” observed the landlady, as he disappeared, “for that gal of mine is so stupid I can’t trust her to do a single thing alone. I don’t know what my old friend Mary Stubbs was thinking of to arsk me to take her. She’s no more good than the fifth wheel of a coach! I believe she’s got a maggot in her brain. I found her making the kitchen table hop round the room yesterday, and when I told her not to be fooling like a child of five year old, she said she hadn’t touched it. If I hadn’t been a fool myself, I shouldn’t never have consented to try a gal, as had never been to service before, and come fresh from the country, like a turnip out of a field. But her mother and me, we was brought up together, and she wanted to get Hannah into service away from Settlefield where they live—something to do with a lad as she wanted to marry, I believe—and I gave in. But she’s likely to prove a plague to me, for she’s always crying after her lad, and if I do hate one thing before another, it is a love-sick gal. You might as well have a basin of gruel to help you in the ’ouse!”

“She’ll soon forget ’im in London,” said Mrs. Blamey consolingly, “there are plenty of lads about! She’ll ’ave another in a fortnight!”

“I dessay,” returned Mrs. Battleby, “but meanwhile she’ll do more damage than she’s worth. She broke half a dozen bits of crockery this week, a rattling them about, and when I tell ’er to keep ’em quiet, she cries and says she can’t ’elp it! Well, good evening, Mrs. Blamey! P’r’aps the Sig-nor will be wanting a little something extry for his supper, now that the Doctor’s come to spend the evening with him.”

And the neighbours parted until the next idle moment should arrive, in which they could relieve their minds by chattering like two magpies to each other.

Meanwhile Doctor Steinberg had run lightly up the staircase until he had reached the third story and tapped at his friend’s door. The Signor gave the permission to enter, and his thin face lighted up with pleasure as he caught sight of Steinberg.

“Ah! the dear young man!” he exclaimed, in English, which was quite intelligible, though rather broken, “and have you come to cheer my solitude? That is very good! Now I shall have a pleasant evening! I want it, my good friend, for I have had a most fatiguing day.”

“I can see that you are weary,” said the young doctor, as he grasped his hand, “and more than that, Signor, you are weak. I am afraid that amidst your multifarious duties to others, you forget your duty to yourself! Your pulse is very feeble. You have neither eaten nor drunk enough to-day. I hope you have prepared a hearty supper for yourself!”

“I know nothing! My good Mrs. Battleby arranges all these little affairs for me! I had a good breakfast before I started this morning, but as for the mid-day meal—well, it is difficult for me to eat when I am tired, and even if I could, it would be still more difficult to digest. My stomach is feeble, Steinberg. If you could give me a new stomach, my kind friend, I know you would, but it is impossible. The machine will go on working a little longer, and for myself I care not how soon it may stop altogether!”

“No! no! you must not say that! Why! you are not fifty yet. You have a good thirty years before you in which to enjoy life and make your friends happy.”

“Friends, Steinberg! with the exception of yourself, where are my friends?”

“O! you have more than you think for, Signor, and at all events one is enough to try and make you look after yourself. You are not so weak as you imagine. If you would rest by night, you would not feel the fatigue of the day so much. But these studies that you will pursue, are killing you! They would try the strength of the strongest man, repeated as they are with you, night after night, but added to the strain made upon your physical and mental faculties by day, they will end by landing you in your grave!”

“Then I shall have gained my desire,” said the Professor, with a faint smile, “and the Great Secret will be solved!”

“Perhaps! but why, then, not wait for the Change which must inevitably come to all of us, to discover what lies beyond?”

“Ah! you do not know—you do not understand——” said the Professor, “my heart is being burnt up with longing and desire. I cannot rest! there is no peace for me unless I am striving to find out one thing—to solve one mystery—I feel as if I cannot die until I have found it out!”

“Found what out?” repeated Steinberg, “what is this secret you are so eager to discover the solution of? Will you not confide it to me?”

The Signor looked at the young scientist curiously, as though questioning whether he could trust him. Presently the gloom cleared off his brow and he murmured,

“Why not? You are my friend—my only friend. You would preserve it as I have done. But will you join me in trying to find the Secret out? Will you also dip into the mysteries of Occultism, and hold converse with the Unseen World?”

“That I cannot promise you,” replied the Doctor, “certainly not until I know what it is you are striving for. Remember, that I know but little of your doings, except that you shut yourself up in that little room for half the night and sit up poring over old books and manuscripts, long after you should be in bed and asleep. I conclude you study Witchcraft and Black Magic! Well! I am a Lutheran and have been reared to consider such studies wrong, and practised only by the children of the Devil, but I know nothing of them myself. What is your object in thus ruining your health? I cannot imagine any sane man who has duties in this world to fulfil, caring about such rubbish. True or false, leave it to those who have no more serious aim in life, and think only of your health and yourself!”

Ricardo leaned back in his chair and smiled furtively.

“Now, what is the use of it?” continued Steinberg, pertinaciously.

The Professor answered the question in a way that startled him.

“Have you ever loved?” he said.

“You must tell me first what you mean by the word.”

“Have you ever loved a woman intensely—passionately—loved her so much that your life was fused in her life—your soul in her soul?”

The Doctor sat up in his chair and stared at his friend. For a moment he thought he had gone mad.

“Never!” he said, emphatically. “As a rule, I have not cared for women. I look upon the sex as a necessary evil—something without which population cannot go on—without which, too, Nature could not exist—but as something also to be avoided as much as possible, and dealt with as little as may be!”

Ricardo sighed.

“Happy man!” he ejaculated at last, “you are to be envied, Steinberg. You have missed great happiness, and great pain.”

“Happiness!” echoed Steinberg, “is it possible, Signor, that your grave demeanour and your mysterious studies have anything to do with a woman?”

“They have everything—everything, to do with it,” exclaimed the elder man, excitedly. “Steinberg, I have never told you my history. You do not even know who I am! If I confide in you, will you hold my confidence sacred?”

The Doctor held out his hand.

“Most certainly I will. There is my hand on it. But do not stir up painful memories for my sake, Professor! If you are endeavouring to forget the Past, let it lie in it’s grave!”

“I wish you to hear it,” replied Ricardo, “I am old, I might go any day. You are my only friend. I should like you to know the truth before we part!”

“Why do you talk of yourself as an old man? What age are you?”

“I was forty-nine on my last birthday.”

“Nonsense! You are in the prime of life. This intelligence still further confirms my belief that your appearance and weakness are due to your unnatural studies alone.”

“But the pursuit of which holds the only consolation this world can afford me,” replied Ricardo. “Wait till you have heard what I have to tell you, Steinberg, and you will acknowledge that I am right. First, then, as to my identity. My name is not Ricardo. I am Paolo, Marchese di Sorrento, the last member of one of the oldest families in Italy.”

“A nobleman!” cried Steinberg, “and in this humble position? For what reason? What brought you down so low, as to be compelled to work for your daily bread?”

“A political offence, my friend, and not of my own doing! A plot against the Government, in which several nobles were concerned, and being the intimate friend and associate of most of them, my name became unfortunately mixed up with theirs, and I found my property and estates confiscated, and myself banished from Italy, before I hardly knew what it was all about. It was a great misfortune, but many have suffered in the same way. I came to England as the only land in which I could make a little money by teaching my native language, and I have managed to exist since and have found several pupils in noble families, as you well know. But my father’s name—the title that had been handed down and honoured through so many generations—I could not retain that! It would have been an infamy—a degradation!”

“No wonder that you have aged before your time—that you are of so melancholy a temperament,” observed Steinberg. “Your misfortunes have been sufficient to kill you.”

“Ah! do not mistake me, my good friend! This reverse, however cruel, could not have had the power to sap my life-strings in this manner. There was worse behind it—so much worse that the blow of losing my name and money fell almost scatheless upon me! I had already lost my world.”

Steinberg remained silent, waiting for him to proceed.

“I asked you just now if you had ever loved, and you told me, ‘No’. You are right! Keep to your resolution. Never allow yourself to be entangled in a woman’s wiles, for they are Death to those who trust in them. When I was only one-and-twenty and had just come into my father’s estates and title, I fell a victim to the charms of Leonora d’Asissi, a young lady my equal in rank and position, and after a brief courtship, we were married. Ah! Steinberg, how I loved—I adored—that woman! You, who confess to having never experienced the tender passion cannot enter into my feelings. We Italians are famous for our ardent love, and no Italian ever loved more ardently than I did. I lived only in her presence; I was never weary of contemplating her exquisite beauty; I waited on her as a slave; I made the day and night tremulous with the repetition of my love. Do not we often weary women by telling them too often that we love them, Steinberg? Are they fickle by nature, or is it only that they hate monotony? Any way Leonora, my adored wife, wearied of me and mine. She could not bear to remain in our beautiful villa in the country, where she saw no one but her enraptured lover, but pined to return to the palazzo in Rome which has been in our family for generations. Here, she would collect around her all the young married women like herself, with their attendant cavalieres serventes and turn night into day with her balls and feasts and concerts. And yet I suspected nothing!”

“Was there anything to suspect?” demanded the Doctor.

The Professor started in his seat.

“Ah! now you touch the root of the matter! Was there? Was there? The question haunts me night and day. But I was jealous, Steinberg, all my nation are! Where Love is so warm, doubts will intrude themselves. Perhaps we expect too much from women. Their natures are not so passionate as ours. We tax them too much—we look for a flame as ardent as our own—and when we do not find it, we begin to suspect it is bestowed upon another man. When I had my Leonora all to myself—when in the silence of night, her beautiful head lay in peaceful sleep upon my breast, I believed nothing but good of her—but when I watched her whirling round the ball room in the arms of some one of my acquaintance, or found her sitting in the conservatory with another, Suspicion would lay hold of my jealous temper, and I would question if after all, she were deceiving me, and everyone knew the bitter truth but myself.”

The recollection of those days of anguish seemed to overcome the Signor even then, for he pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the moisture from his brow.

“The relation distresses you,” remarked Steinberg, “pray do not proceed.”

“No! no! I shall not stop now until you have heard all. I have gone too far already. Amongst Leonora’s acquaintances was a young man, a mere lad called Lorenzo Centi. Some one made a joke about her and this boy before me and aroused my suspicions concerning them. I found Leonora on more than one occasion sitting apart on a couch with young Centi—once, with their hands clasped together—and I forbad him the house in consequence. But a rumour reached my ears that, when I was away from home, my wife’s woman was used to fetch Centi to her, and they spent the time of my absence together. I determined to watch. I professed to be going for a night into the country to see after my farm, but I returned at midnight, and found them supping together in Leonora’s boudoir. I rushed in upon them furiously, and my wife turned and laughed in my face—knowing all my deep love for her, she laughed at my disappointment and she drove me mad. Before God, Steinberg, if she had only cried, or seemed frightened, or sorry, I should have spared her—I loved her so intensely—but her laugh raised all the Devil in me and before the smile had left her lips, she lay dead at my feet.”

The stoical German sprang away from Ricardo’s side. He had been prepared for much, but not for murder.

“No! no! you must be mistaken,” he exclaimed; “you do not mean that you killed her!”

“Killed her! Of course I did, and would have killed her lover into the bargain, but that he escaped before I could lay hands on him. She laughed at my distress, and I stabbed her to the heart with my dagger. Better dead, a thousand times, I thought, than live a lie! But now—now——”

“You are sorry—you repent——” said Steinberg, sympathetically, “Yes! I can understand it perfectly! But it was done in a moment of anger—you were not master of yourself—you would act very differently were the time to come over again.”

“Not if she were false,” cried the Professor, “I would kill her over again this moment, if she deceived me! But did she—did she? That is the question that harasses me now.”

“What! have you any doubts upon the subject?”

“I have every doubt—they torture me day and night. What proofs had I of her guilt? She was young and careless and very, very beautiful! Might she not have played with fire without considering the consequences—without being burnt? She laughed at me, it is true—but she did not know the depth of a man’s love—the strength of a man’s jealousy.

“She did not think, my poor Leonora, that my hand was on the fatal weapon I carried in my breast. Ah, Steinberg, it is better like you never to have known the rapture of possessing a woman, than to feel you have sent her out of the world, when perhaps she was innocent.”

“It is terrible,” said the Doctor, “but was it never cleared up?”

“Never! In my country, we think far less of such things than you do in yours. A husband who kills his wife through jealousy, and especially when he has found her with her lover, is too common an offender to provoke condign punishment. I was had up before the tribunal to afford an explanation of my wife’s death, and the reasons I gave were considered sufficient. I left the country afterwards, more to escape from my maddening recollections than to avoid Society—I also had a burning desire to meet young Centi and give him his due, but he was so successfully concealed by his family, that I never gained my wish. Perhaps it was for the best. My hands might have been imbrued in a second unnecessary murder! When, after many years’ wandering, I ventured to return to Rome, it was to find that my estates were no longer mine, and I was doomed to exile. Now, you have my history, Steinberg, and you may thank God that you have escaped so sad a one!”

Karl Steinberg was silent for awhile—so was his companion. This narrative had rather shocked the German’s sensibilities, while it had excited great sympathy for the lonely man before him, who had been bereft of all he held dear, or that made life worth living for him.

The Doctor, with his want of faith in Women, had not much doubt in his own mind that the Signor’s wife had merited her doom, but he declined to express an opinion on the subject either way. After a few minutes’ pause, he said, with the view of turning a conversation which had become so painful to both of them,

“But what has all this to do, Professor, with your study of the Black Art?”

CHAPTER II.

Ricardo looked up dreamily, as if he had quite forgotten that part of the subject.

“Have I not told you?” he inquired; “do you not understand?”

“Indeed I do not! I am quite in the dark about it! You have related to me the painful story of your poor wife’s death, with which I fully sympathise, but I do not trace any connection between that and your interest in Mysticism.”

“How strange! How very strange!” replied Ricardo, shaking himself together. “Why! to me they are one. My one object in life now is to learn the truth—to hear if I were only the rightful agent to avenge a great wrong, or if my mad jealousy prompted me to commit a murder. It is for this reason alone that I have studied, as far as I am able, the Art of Magic, and pored over my books and my experiments half the nights through, in order to gain an answer.”

“But how can that avail you, Signor? Do you expect the Spirits of Evil to aid you in this matter?”

“No! no! Leonora herself! It is for Leonora only that I sit up night after night, listening for a sign, a whisper—straining my eyes for a glance, a shadow—but it seems all in vain. I must have help, and in this house, surrounded as I am by curious eyes, I know not how to obtain what I require.”

“And do you really believe that your dead wife will be able by the aid of Magic to return to you in bodily shape and satisfy your curiosity on this subject?” questioned the Doctor, almost amused at the idea—so impossible did it appear to him.

“Why not? Why not?” inquired Ricardo, impatiently. “Others have come, and why not my beautiful Leonora? Surely, you do not disbelieve in the possibility of the spirit’s return to earth? It has happened in all ages! Why not in this?”

“I know too little of the matter to be able to give you a sensible answer,” said the Doctor, “but if possible, it seems most undesirable to me. These things will all be cleared up for us by and by, in the Hereafter, if there be an Hereafter. Meanwhile, cannot you persuade yourself to wait patiently until you join your wife in the Great Beyond? If you committed an unfortunate error and she was innocent, why disturb her in the rest she must have gained?—and if, on the contrary, she really deceived you, may you not be doing yourself an injury by drawing back to earth a malevolent spirit, who may still be harbouring thoughts of revenge against you?”

“No! no!” said the Professor, shaking his head, “you will not convince me I am doing wrong, or rob me of my one unceasing hope to see and speak with her again. It is the awful doubt, the suspense, that has turned my hair grey before its time, and made my voice quaver like that of an old man. If I could only raise her from the dead for one little moment—hear her say, ‘I am innocent, and I forgive you!’ I should ask no more—I should live contentedly and die happy!”

“And what means do you take to this end?” demanded Karl Steinberg, who could not help feeling a certain amount of interest in the matter, since his friend appeared so earnest over it.

Ricardo looked round the room as though to assure himself that he had no listeners—then rising, went to the door, and having locked it, turned to Steinberg, and said,

“Come with me and see my séance room!”

He stepped towards the door of the third room, which constituted him such a Mystery to his landlady, and which opened from the one in which they sat, and turned the key. Steinberg followed him curiously, but all he saw was, that the small apartment was hung round the walls and over the window and floor, with black stuff, and that it contained no furniture, unless a couple of cushions thrown on the ground can be called so.

“No air and no light!” exclaimed the Doctor. “And what do you do here?”

“When the household have gone to bed,” said Ricardo, mysteriously, “and I am sure of not being disturbed, I shut myself in and burn the different incenses recommended in the books of Magic, and after a while the spirits come, and sit down on the floor beside me.”

“Do you mean me to believe that?” exclaimed Steinberg, staring at Ricardo as though he were insane, as indeed, at that moment, he believed him to be.

“You can believe it, or not,” replied the Professor, “but it is true.”

“Impossible!” cried the Doctor, “you let your imagination run away with you. You work so hard all day and permit this morbid fancy to occupy your tired brain by night, until it has become in a measure, diseased. I know you think you see and feel these things, but it is a species of delirium or mental intoxication, bred of your intense longing to accomplish what is unaccomplishable.”

“Very good,” said Ricardo, quietly, “if you believe that, you must believe it! But what would convince you of the truth?”

“Nothing but the evidence of my own senses, whilst they were in the calm condition they are at present.”

“If that is so, my friend, stay here and sit with me to-night. Then your own senses shall convince you.”

This proposition took Steinberg by surprise. He was not entirely free from the universal dread of anything like communication with the Unseen World, although he had expressed his disbelief in the possibility, but his fear was mingled with curiosity, and the result was that he assented to Ricardo’s proposal.

“I will, Professor,” he said, “if only to try and show you that your supposed spirits are merely shadows cast upon the wall.”

“A wall which has no light wherewith to cast shadows,” remarked Ricardo, sarcastically.

“Well! well! that they are shadows thrown on the retina of your eye by reflections from your brain,” replied the young Doctor, somewhat testily, for he did not like to be refuted on his own ground, “any way that the spirits of the dead have nothing to do with anything that you may see, or hear, whilst shut up in this little room.”

“We are not arguing on what I may see or hear, Steinberg, but on what may strike your senses. Neither did I affirm that the living things that visit me, are spirits of the dead. My studies have taught me that there is a class of secondary spirits called Elementals, that have had nothing to do with this earth, but who yet can and do come to the aid of those mortals who solicit their assistance. The vapoury forms that appear to me may be only Elementals, but they come, all the same.”

“If they come, they must be worth the trouble of investigation, if only in the interests of Science,” remarked Steinberg, thoughtfully, “but after all, will it not resolve itself into the same old truth that we have been brought up to believe, i.e., that we are surrounded by evil spirits always ready to whisper bad thoughts into our ears, and stimulate our worst inclinations?”

“But if evil spirits, then also good,” interposed the Professor eagerly, “you surely would not deny the same power to all those departed this earth. If devils, then also my Leonora, to speak with whom I have been promised over and over again, and feel I only want more power to accomplish.”

“Well! at all events I will sit with you this evening, Professor, and try to see as you do. But I hear footsteps on the stairs. Had you not better close the door of your sanctum, and turn the conversation to some lighter subject?”

Ricardo locked the door carefully, putting the key in his pocket, and by the time Mrs. Battleby appeared with the supper tray, the two friends were talking gaily of a new drama that had just created some sensation in the town.

“I wish you would come out with me sometimes, Professor,” the Doctor was saying, “it would do you good to see some of these novelties and listen to the discussions over them.”

“Ah! that it would, Sir,” said Mrs. Battleby, who was never backward in joining in the conversation, “it would do the Sig-nor all the good in the world, instead of poring over them nasty, musty vollums of his, as must be enough to make any gentleman’s ’ead ache.”

“No! no! no!” exclaimed Ricardo, waving their suggestions away with his hand, “I cannot! It is impossible! I have other things to do.”

“Or if you would ’ave your friends here more of an evening, Sir,” continued the landlady, “nice, light-’arted young people, as could play the banjo to you and sing a bit, I’m sure it would cheer you up, and dissolve you from your studies.”

“Nonsense! you don’t know what you’re talking about,” exclaimed the Professor, impatiently. “Put down the tray, Mrs. Battleby, like a good creature, and leave the Doctor and me to ourselves. We have some important matters to discuss.”

“Certainly, Sir,” said Mrs. Battleby, as she bounced the tray down on the table with an energy that proved her wounded feelings, “and I ’ope as when you rings the bell, you won’t mind my gal Hannah coming up to clear, as I’ve got a little marketing to do, and I knows you don’t like the things lying about too long.”

“O! dear no,” said Ricardo, “let Hannah clear the table by all means, and tell her to be quick about it, Mrs. Battleby, as my friend and I have business to attend to.”

“Very good, Sir!” replied the landlady, as she left them to themselves.

Steinberg and Ricardo soon dispatched the simple meal set before them, and then the former, drawing out his watch, remarked that if he was to get home that night, he thought they had better set to work in their search after the Invisible World.

The Professor accordingly rang the bell, which was answered by a young woman whom he had never seen before, all the waiting in his room being usually performed by Mrs. Battleby. The stranger was about eighteen years of age, and looked as if she had just been transported from a stack-yard, or a cow-house, and set down in Soho. She was not at all attractive to the sight. She had a thick, ungainly figure, with a waist like a tar-barrel, and huge hands and feet. Her bosom was unusually developed for so young a girl—her face was broad and flat—her mouth wide—her nose short and turned-up, and her colour coarse and high. But to counteract all these failings, Hannah possessed a wonderful pair of grey eyes, set wide apart in a low forehead—eyes that looked you through and through, and yet had a far-away dreamy gaze that was very provoking to Mrs. Battleby who declared the girl was always more than half asleep. Hannah also rejoiced in a thick mass of light brown hair, which made her head seem much too large for her body. Taken altogether, she was uncouth, but there was an innocence and simplicity in her gaze which was very attractive when one had the time to discover it. As she stood silent on the threshold of the Professor’s room, the men both thought she was one of the stupidest, most countrified lasses they had ever come across.

“Are you Hannah?” asked Ricardo, and on receiving an answer in the affirmative, he added,

“Well! your mistress said you were to clear away my supper tray, and when you have done that, you can bring me up a jug of hot water, and then you must not disturb us again to-night. Do you understand?”

For the girl was looking at him so stolidly, that it seemed doubtful if she had even heard what he said to her.

“Yes, Sir!” she answered, in a dull, low voice, as she piled all the plates and dishes on the top of one another, preparatory to making a grand smash if she should happen to slip going downstairs again.

“What a lout!” was Steinberg’s observation, as Hannah disappeared.

“Just so,” said Ricardo, “a simple piece of clay—a heifer newly driven from pasture—an animal with all her senses undeveloped—but not without a soul! Did you remark her eyes? They are unfathomable! I should be curious, had I the time, to find out what lies beneath them.”

“Holloa!” cried Steinberg, with a laugh, “take care of yourself, Professor! Finding out what lies beneath women’s eyes, is dangerous work! You might even animate this clod in your researches.”

Ricardo regarded him reproachfully.

“Do you know me so little, as to jest on such a subject?” he said. “I, whose whole soul is bent on one object only. Steinberg, will you believe me when I say, that since Leonora died beneath my hand, I have never looked at another woman with even a semblance of the same feelings? I was only thirty when I drove her soul from me, but I have been widowed ever since, and shall remain so to my grave!”

“It’s a mistake to take these things too seriously,” replied his friend, “it is better to have lived as I have, caring for no one and regretting no one—for you see when a gap occurs I am able to fill it up without delay or compunction.”

“Ah! I could not live like that!” said the Professor with a sigh. “With me it must be all, or nothing! Leonora was my All. I could kill her, but I could not replace her. Well! are you ready?”

“Certainly, when you are.”

Ricardo rose, and (Hannah having re-appeared with the hot water) produced various pungent spices and gums, and with dried herbs and other mysterious preparations from a drawer, commenced to separate them into measured portions and to crumble them into a bowl.

“What is all this about?” demanded Steinberg, who having lit his pipe and got a tumbler of hot grog by his side, was disposed to view his friend’s doings from a humorous point of view.

“It would take too long to explain a mixture to you, which it has taken me years to collect and assimilate,” said Ricardo, “but it is the only potion that I have found really effectual—the only one that has brought the spirits round me. Some of these essences and oils came from India. An old friend of mine out there, took the trouble to collect and preserve them for me, and others I have paid far more than I can afford, for, but the result has been worth it all, as you shall judge for yourself!”

“But how, in the name of all that’s wonderful, can a few scents, however potent, have the power to attract, or cause to be visible, spirits of air?” demanded the Doctor.

“You must tell me first what those spirits are composed of,” replied the Professor. “You, as a medical man, know that our bodies are composed of chemicals—it stands to reason therefore, that our spiritual bodies are composed of the same, though varying from the earthly ones, as they themselves do. When you can give me a list of the chemicals, or essences, composing the spiritual part of ourselves, I may be able to find out why certain decoctions attract them hither and enable them to become visible to mortal sight. The fact is, Steinberg, it is all a great Mystery, which perhaps we are not intended to solve. But what is not a Mystery? Can you tell me that? What are Birth and Death, but unfathomable Mysteries, that we shall never know the meaning of, in this world? We accept them as ordinary things, because we see them happen every day, but we know no more about them—how they happen or how they are to be prevented—than you know of this mixture, which is now ready to be set alight to.”

“Come on, old friend, then,” replied the Doctor, as he led the way into the séance chamber.

Ricardo carried a lighted taper, and matches, which he was careful to secure in his pocket, for it was like a vault they entered. The sombre hangings which enveloped the apartment, shutting out both light and air, and the musty smell which came from them, mingled with the stale scent of the incense, made the place feel uncanny. Ricardo walked up to the cushions on the floor, and told Steinberg to seat himself on one of them. Having deposited himself beside him, and set alight to the incense, he blew out the candle, and the wreathing smoke which ascended from the bowl was the only illumination in the room.

Steinberg began to feel uneasy, notwithstanding his vaunted incredulity. The German nation is famous for its many tales and legends of ghostly lore, and however our reason may seem to disprove their authenticity, our faith is prone to cling to the truths which have been instilled into our minds during childhood.

As he watched the smoke curling up towards the ceiling, Steinberg felt unusually cold—the little room seemed to fill with a chilly wind which blew upon his face and hands—and the silence which his companion maintained served to increase the gloom.

“May we not talk?” he whispered, presently, to Ricardo.

“Certainly, if you feel so inclined,” returned the Professor, “but for myself, the occasion always seems so solemn, that I can only hold commune with my own thoughts and think of—her!”

“And you are not in the least alarmed?” inquired the Doctor, who had felt his companion leaning very hard against his shoulder, as if for confidence and support.

“Not in the slightest. I am awed—but not frightened,” was the reply.

“Why, then, do you lean so hard against me?” said Steinberg.

“I am not touching you,” replied Ricardo, “I am too far away! I am not seated on the cushion now, but in the centre of the room.”

“Not seated on the cushion?” repeated Steinberg. “Then—in God’s Name!—who is?”

“How can I tell? I have already said that I am not near you! Doubtless one of the spirits who visit me, is anxious to convince you of his identity. Speak to him, Steinberg! As yet, I have been unable to make them speak to me! You may be more successful.”

But the Doctor had already rolled off the cushion towards the door.

“Let me out!” he cried, “I will not stay here a moment longer! I told you when you first made this infamous proposal to me, that it was diabolical!—that none but evil spirits could be induced to hold communication with men. And this must have been a devil, I am sure of it, else he would have had the decency to give me some warning, before sitting down beside me. Open the door, Professor! I have been brought up a Lutheran, and my Church forbids all such practices as these. I refuse to stay in this room any longer!”

“All right! It is all right!” said the Professor, as he drew the key from his pocket and unlocked the door, “you are frightened, that is all. I thought you would not be so brave when you came to see and feel them. But how about it’s being all my imagination, eh, Doctor?”

Karl Steinberg, restored to the light, felt that he cut rather a sorry figure. His cheeks were blanched with terror, and his limbs shook from the same cause. But he tried to laugh it off.

“Now, confess, Professor, that you have been playing me a trick,” he said, “it was you who came up and leant so hard against me, wasn’t it? You thought you’d catch me tripping, you know, and put me in a blue funk. But you haven’t succeeded, I’m as cool as a cucumber!”

Ricardo looked at him reproachfully.

“You are wrong,” he replied, “and you know you are wrong! If it were I, and you knew it, why didn’t you throw your arms round me? Why did you insist upon leaving the room? And why do you look so blue about the mouth and chin? Ah! no, my friend, you know it was not I, as well as I do! And such a pity too! They were coming so beautifully. They have never come so quickly before. You are just the man to help me. Come now, come back for a little, and I will promise to sit close to you all the while!”

And he laid his hand on that of the Doctor, as he spoke. But Steinberg pulled his vehemently away.

“No! no! not for all the world,” he ejaculated, “I will not play with the Devil any longer! You must conduct your diabolical practices by yourself.”

“But you will acknowledge they are not fraud then—that there is something to be frightened at?”

“I will acknowledge nothing! I am not in a fit state to argue the matter to-night. To-morrow, perhaps, I may be able to judge more calmly. All that I can say is, that I refuse to enter that room again.”

“If I could only persuade you,” continued the Professor, “if you had only waited a little while and watched the smoke from the bowl, you would have seen such beautiful forms shaping themselves amongst it! Women and little children like cherubs—sometimes I have sat up all night unable to tear myself away from so beautiful a sight!”

“All emissaries of the Evil One,” replied Steinberg, who was still shaking from the scare he had received, “sent perhaps to lure you to your destruction. Take care what you are about, Ricardo! Some morning you may be found missing—dragged down to the Infernal Regions by these demons, who assume the appearance of Angels of Light in order to deceive you.”

“The Infernal Regions!” exclaimed the other, excitedly, “and what would they signify to me, if I am never to see, nor speak, with my Leonora more. Ah! Steinberg, I forget! You know nothing but the name of this Love, which could turn Heaven into Hell without the presence of the Beloved One, and vice vêrsa. Had you loved and lost as I have, you would sit in that room, not a night, but every night, till you heard some news of her who made your world.”

“Perhaps,” replied Steinberg, stolidly, “but you see, I haven’t.”

“But you will try again, will you not? You will come when this first alarm has subsided, and see if you cannot stand it better? I, too, felt fear when first I sat alone and watched the spirits rise from the incense I had lighted, with my own hands. But that has all gone! I am as calm now as the dead themselves! And so will you be, if you will only try again!”

“Never! Not for all the wealth of the Indies would I enter that accursed room of my own free will, again. I am going, Ricardo! I don’t feel well! I think the smell of the incense has upset me! Forgive me for leaving you so soon, but I shall be better at home. Good-night!”

He ran hastily down the stairs as he spoke, and the Professor, ruminating on the little trust there is to be put in one’s friends in time of need, retired sadly to his bed.

CHAPTER III.

Signor Ricardo passed a restless night. His disappointment preyed upon his mind and robbed him of sleep. He had so long wished to ask Steinberg to join him in his pursuit of Occultism—had so depended on his assistance—and prophesied their mutual success—that the Doctor’s abject terror at his first experience, had thrown cold water on all his hopes.

Leonora seemed further off than ever, and he groaned in spirit to think she might be so near, and yet he was unable to communicate with her, and ascertain if he had been right or wrong in the indulgence of his revenge. Had his dead wife stood before him then, he would hardly have known what he most desired to hear her say. If she declared her innocence, his rash act had made him doubly guilty, yet if she confessed that he had been right, she was lost to him for ever.

But the Signor hardly thought of that—the burning truth was all he wished to discover. The real fact being, that Leonora had been all and much worse than he had ever believed her to be. She had been a heartless coquette of the worst dye—vain, deceitful, and self-seeking—caring nothing whom she wounded, so long as her insatiate vanity was gratified—with no thought, so long as she gained her cause, over whose dead bodies she trampled on her road to Victory. She had been guilty with Lorenzo Centi, and half-a-dozen other men, and the death-blow which her husband’s dagger gave her, was the very smallest punishment which she deserved.

Yet Ricardo was not satisfied. With Leonora, whom he had so fondly worshipped, dead, his belief in her iniquity had died also, and all his fear was, lest he had slain a woman who loved him as much as he loved her. And he knew of no way by which his doubts could be laid to rest, except by bringing her back from the grave to tell him the truth with her own lips.

As he lay in his narrow bed that night, he conjured the Almighty by every petition he could think of, to permit her to return, if only for a moment, and allay his bitter fears by one means or the other. But no answer came to his prayer. No sound nor sight came out of the darkness to afford him the consolation of knowing that his prayer had reached the Throne. His Heavenly Father had deserted him; he was a child left out in the darkness and the cold; left to find his way home by himself. If he wandered from the beaten track, who could blame him? No helping hand was stretched out to guide him; no light appeared in the distance to show him the way; he must penetrate the Mysteries of Nature by himself, and as best he could. Once or twice during that long night, the Professor fancied he saw a faint, tremulous movement of the curtains that hung round his bed—thought he heard a whisper penetrate the air;—but he listened, and strained his eyes in vain—nothing more rewarded his rapt attention.

“Leonora! my beloved!” he said, in a low voice, as he sat up in bed, and tried to pierce the gloom with his mortal vision; “Leonora! come to me—speak to me! Tell me the truth! I will not be angry now! I know we all have sinned, and you were but mortal like myself—only solve these doubts. If you were innocent of wronging me—if that bitter blow was a foul injury to your faith to me, I will bear the purgatory it will bring me, thankfully, only to know that you are dwelling in the Light of God! And if it was only an act of justice—if, in the heat of your youth and carelessness, you were unfaithful to your marriage vow, I forgive you, my Beloved,—I forgive you from my heart, and will tell you so, as soon as we meet in another world. Only come to me, my wife—only look at me! whisper one word of affection, and I shall live and die, content!”

So the poor lover and husband raved, only to be answered by silence and gloom. Leonora was there! He felt it, but he had not sufficient power by himself, to enable her to manifest her spiritual presence to him. If Steinberg would not sit with him, he must find some one else—for he could not stand the suspense and anxiety much longer.

He tossed and turned in his bed until daylight, and rose with the earliest dawn, worn and haggard, with the intention of walking in the Park before he took his breakfast. It was seven o’clock as the Professor turned out of the front door of his dingy lodgings—an unprecedented thing on his part, for he usually sat up so late, that he did not leave the house until his first lessons were due. As he reached the lower passage, he found the front door open and the girl Hannah cleaning the steps. Ricardo passed her with a bow, for he was a most courteous man in his dealings with women, but Hannah’s head was bent upon her work, and she did not see him. As Ricardo gained the pavement he turned and looked at her. She was kneeling in the attitude in which such work is done, and her slip-shod shoes which had half fallen off, left her feet, encased in black worsted stockings, well exposed to view. They were large feet, as has been said before, and two holes in her stockings left the naked heels bare for the admiration of the passers-by. The Professor stopped for a moment and regarded those heels. They were not pretty perhaps, but they were rosy and firm, and undeniably youthful, and somehow they inspired him with a certain amount of compassion, to think that such young flesh should have to bear its burden of life so soon. He stood as though transfixed by the sight of those two rosy heels. No thought of lust, or even admiration, entered his mind, which was far too sensitive and refined for any feeling of the kind, but they excited his pity, and carried him back somehow to the days when he, too, was young and innocent. He felt as if he wanted to say something kind to the poor young girl who had begun so early to drudge for others. The rosy heels, though only seen through the ugly medium of a pair of ragged stockings, attracted him as a callow nestling with gaping beak, or a little pink apple hanging in an orchard might have done. He would have no desire to possess the callow bird, and the idea of eating the sour apple would have set his teeth on edge—yet they would have carried with them a memory of the days when he would have enjoyed them both—and in this light he felt drawn towards Hannah Stubbs as she scrubbed the front door steps. He had a shilling in his pocket, and he stepped back to give it to her. Perhaps a shilling might represent many things that would give pleasure to the little household drudge—but as the Professor drew near to her the second time, he perceived that Hannah was crying and the tears were dropping on the flags she knelt upon, and mingling with the hearth-stone. Tears in the eyes of a woman always excited the Signor’s sympathy, and, forgetting the shilling, he inquired eagerly why Hannah wept.

The girl looked frightened at being detected in such an act of self-indulgence.

“It’s nothing, Sir—nothing!” she exclaimed, as she hastily rubbed her eyes with her knuckles and smeared her face over with the hearth-stone.

“O! come, that cannot be quite true,” replied Ricardo, “I’m sure you are not so foolish as to cry for nothing! Perhaps you have left your friends for the first time, and are new to service, and it seems hard to you. Is that so?”

The girl seemed grateful for the enquiry.

“It ain’t that, Sir,” she said, shaking her head. “In course I was sorry to leave mother and father and the rest, but ’tain’t that as makes me cry. We’ve all got to arn our bread, and mother said it was time I was doing of something—and she will be so angry if I goes ’ome again so soon—that she will!” and Hannah commenced to sob anew.

“But why should you go, Hannah? Is not Mrs. Battleby satisfied with you?”

“No, Sir, I’m afeared not, though I does all I can, but she’s angry with me a’cause of the plates and dishes which they keeps slipping about, but I’m as careful of them as I can be, Sir, and I can’t ’elp the tables and chairs ’opping round the room—and whatever mother will think I don’t know! She’ll say it’s such a disgrace, but it ain’t my fault—Boo-hoo-hoo!” and here Hannah commenced to blubber afresh, till the Professor began to fear that she would attract the attention of the passers-by.

“Now, look here, my good girl,” he said, “don’t cry, or you will make Mrs. Battleby still more angry. The neighbours will think she has been beating you. Listen to me! Mrs. Battleby’s a good soul, though rather strict perhaps, but I’ve known her a long time, and if you’ll promise me to dry your eyes, and be as careful as you can of the china, I’ll speak to her on your behalf when I come back from business this evening, and see if I cannot induce her to give you another trial.”

“I’m sure you’re mortal good, Sir,” said the girl, as she dug her knuckles afresh into her eyes.

“Never mind the goodness! You do your work as well as ever you can, to-day, and I’ll see what I can do for you on my return. What is your other name, Hannah?”

“Stubbs, Sir! I’m a Shropshire girl—was raised there, and never left the village I was born in till mother sent me to Lunnon. Lor! how I wish she ’adn’t! Father is that hard on me, and what they’ll say if I’m sent back in disgrace—Mother and Joe and all—I’m sure I don’t know!”

“Who is Joe?” asked the Professor, kindly, “your brother?”

“No, Sir! My young man.”

“Your young man! So you have a young man of your own already! And why did you come out to service, then, Hannah? Why did you not marry Joe instead?”

The girl gave a conscious grin as she replied:

“We was willing enough, Sir, but mother wouldn’t hear on’t. She said Joe hadn’t enough to keep hisself, let alone me, and that a few years’ service would do me all the good in the world. But it seems ’ard for to leave ’ome and all.”

“Never mind, Hannah! I daresay your mother knows best, and the time will pass quicker than you imagine. Any way I shall not forget to speak for you to Mrs. Battleby, so good-morning!” And Ricardo went on his way, smiling slightly to himself.

Since the fatal night when his hand had sent the woman he loved best to her last account, Ricardo had felt very tenderly towards all women, for her sake. He was so dreadfully afraid of making another mistake about them. He thought more of this shapeless, ungainly girl as he took his walk in the Park, than he could have believed possible—not of her ugliness, nor awkwardness, nor little troubles—but of those mysterious wonderful eyes of which she did not seem conscious, but which looked as if they saw that which was invisible to every one else. How strange that such eyes—so the Professor thought—should be set in so rough a face and figure; eyes, which the greatest beauty in the land might have envied, combined with a shape which no decent housemaid would have cared to exhibit.

If Hannah’s eyes had not been so mystical in appearance, would the Signor have borne her ordinary troubles so faithfully in mind, and spoken with Mrs. Battleby about their alleviation on the first opportunity? It is doubtful! Man, however supine, is apt to be led by his fancy. Any way, when his landlady made her appearance with his evening meal, he opened the subject at once.

“Mrs. Battleby, my good friend, I want to speak with you, on behalf of your little maid, Hannah! How has she offended you? Is she very stupid, very clumsy, very impertinent? Why do you propose to send her back to her good mother, who will doubtless be unpleasantly disappointed to see her again.”

“Has Hannah presumed to complain of me to you, Sig-nor?” demanded the landlady, becoming instantly stiff and rigid with indignation.

“O! no, indeed, but I take interest in the troubles of the young. We have all been young, Mrs. Battleby, and all been ignorant and wilful and done silly things. I saw this young girl weeping this morning and stopped to ask her the reason, and all she said was, that you intended to send her home again and she feared her people would be very angry with her.”

“If you’ll excuse me taking a seat, for them stairs try my breath dreadful,” said Mrs. Battleby, as she plumped herself down on one of the Professor’s chairs, “I’ll tell you all about it. Send ’er ’ome indeed! I should think I would, and it’s the last kind act I’ll do for Mary Stubbs as long as I live. We was neighbours-like, Sig-nor, this gal’s mother and I, and so when she arsked me to take ’er gal and give ’er a trial, I said ‘Yes’, never thinking, may the Lord forgive ’er, as Mary Stubbs would ’ave put off a daft gal on me as trusted ’er.”

“Is poor Hannah really daft, whatever that may mean?” asked Ricardo.

“And that she is, Sig-nor, and ought to be in the Hidiot Hasylum, if all had their doo. Why! she’s done nothing since she come here, but ’op about after the tables and chairs.”

“Hop about after the tables and chairs?” echoed the Professor, with open eyes.

“It’s God’s truth Sig-nor, and nothing else. I’ve seen the kitchen table, which it must weigh ’alf a ton, waltz after that gal all over the kitchen, and she’ll set the cups and saucers and glasses spinning like tops. And then when I remonstrances with ’er, she’ll cry like a ninny and say she’s not done nothing. The way in which she’s broke china since she’s bin in this ’ouse is wicked. And I won’t stand it no longer—that’s flat, for if she don’t do it, why, the Devil do, and ’ome she must go!”

“But, Mrs. Battleby, one moment! I do not quite understand you. If Hannah does not make the furniture dance, who does?”

“That is what I want to know, Sig-nor! But ’ow the gal moves a heavy table is beyond me. Nor ’ow she makes the glasses spin! But if I remonstrances with ’er, as I said before, she do nothing but cry and say ’tain’t ’er fault, which is all nonsense. And so back she goes to Settlefield, as soon as I’ve got some one to take ’er place!”

“It is very curious,” remarked the Professor, pensively, “and there must be some solution of the problem. Do you think that Hannah would make the table dance for me, Mrs. Battleby?”

“Lor, Sig-nor! don’t you go a tempting of Providence! Let the gal and ’er tricks alone!”

“But I am interested in what you have told me, from a scientific point of view! There may be a reason for it all, and if so, I should like to find it out. Would you have any objection to my seeing Hannah by herself this evening, and questioning her on the subject?”

“Dear me, no, Sig-nor—not if you’ll take the trouble! But you won’t get nothing for your pains. She’s just obstinate, that gal is, and cries if you hold up your little finger at her!”

“Does she suit you in other respects, Mrs. Battleby?”

“O! she ain’t no better nor wuss than others. Them gals are all alike—a set of sloppy, dirty, careless ’ussies, as don’t care if you go to gaol next week all along of their breakages and lies. In course you can interlude Hannah whenever you choose, Sig-nor. I’ll send ’er up to clear as soon as you’ve ’ad your tea, and then you can ’ave a talk with ’er. But you won’t make nothink out of it, them’s my words! But that’s the Doctor’s knock, as sure as sure! Well! he is a good friend to you, Sig-nor, and no mistake!”

“Yes! I am glad he has come! I hardly expected him after last night,” replied the Professor, who was quite excited at his new thoughts regarding Hannah Stubbs.

Karl Steinberg entered the room with an outstretched hand, as the landlady curtsied and disappeared.

“Forgive me, Ricardo!” he exclaimed; “I was a fool last night, and worse than that, too great a coward to confess it! I was horribly nervous and alarmed, but thinking the matter over has made me see the folly of which I was guilty. But I am convinced, that if you were, as you declared yourself to be (and I cannot doubt your word), in the centre of the floor, there was some force ulterior to my own in that little room last night, and I will not rest till I have found out the truth. Will you re-admit me to your séances? Will you forgive my first alarm, and let me pursue the study of the Occult with you?”

“My dear Karl!” exclaimed Ricardo, heartily shaking his proffered hand, “nothing would give me greater pleasure. But if we are to go in for these researches together, and in earnest, we must try and think of some plausible excuse for our spending our nights together, as I find my landlady, Mrs. Battleby, is much opposed to anything that she cannot understand. We have just been holding a conversation respecting her maid-of-all-work, Hannah Stubbs.”

Ricardo then went into the subject of his talk with Mrs. Battleby at some length, and was pleased to see the interest which it excited in Doctor Steinberg.

“Have the girl up by all means,” he said eagerly, “she may be what I have heard you call a physical medium, and we may evolve great things from her. She is countrified and stupid, you say! She probably in that case knows nothing of her own powers, and is frightened at the effects which she produces. I saw her last evening, did I not? She is just an animal, with grand vitality and perhaps magnetism—with any amount of bodily strength, and no brain. Have her up, Ricardo, by all means, and let us see something of these mysterious powers of hers.”

“If she will display them,” replied his friend, as he rang the bell.

Hannah appeared, looking as stolid as before, but with a faint smile for the gentleman who had promised to intercede for her.

“Shut the door, Hannah, and sit down. I want to have a little talk with you,” commenced the Professor, gently, “I have been having a few words with Mrs. Battleby, and she says the only fault she has to find with you is that you can make the chairs and tables dance. Will you try and make them dance now, that my friend and I may see?”

The girl looked startled and edged towards the wall as if she wished to avoid contact with any of the furniture of the room.

“O! no, Sir, please don’t arsk me,” she said in a scared voice, as she glanced timidly in the direction of the tea-table, “ ’tain’t my fault indeed, I’ve told the missus that over and over again. I don’t know nothink about it, and I wish they wouldn’t come after me—I do indeed!”

All this while, with her skirts gathered up tightly in her hand, Hannah was looking fearfully in the direction of the table, which now commenced slowly, but perceptibly, to move towards her.

“O! it’s a’coming,” she screamed. “O! stop it, Sir, do, for the Lord’s sake! What do it want with me? I ain’t got nothing to say to it! O my! O my!”

Meanwhile the table had advanced to her until its edge was against her body.

“Do you see that, Steinberg?” observed Ricardo, “The furniture has actually moved without contact. This is very marvellous!”

“Go away! go away!” cried Hannah, as she kicked at the legs of the table which was now pressing her against the wall. “O! Sir, please don’t go to tell the missus, for it never was so bad as this before—never!”

“By Jove! look there!” exclaimed the Doctor, as a sound drew their attention in another direction, and they turned to see the Professor’s rocking chair, quietly rocking by itself in the corner of the room.

“I never saw such a thing in my life before,” said Ricardo. “Steinberg, this is a very wonderful girl. We must try to keep her to ourselves, at all events until we have solved the reason of her powers.”

Then he turned to Hannah, who presented a ludicrous spectacle, squeezed up in a corner of the room by the table, and crying loudly without any means of drying her eyes.

“Stop that noise, my dear girl, do!” he said. “Don’t be afraid! No one shall hurt you, and you cannot suppose that a table could! But my friend and I are very much interested in this strange power of yours, and would like to see some more of it. I shall ask Mrs. Battleby to let you come up here in the evenings when she does not require your services, and we will see that you are rewarded for your trouble. You are not afraid of Doctor Steinberg and me, are you?”

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The strange transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs

THE
STRANGE
TRANSFIGURATION
OF
HANNAH STUBBS

CONTENTS