legend grew, and many were the wild tales told about the invisible Doctor and his foster-son. In his youthful days the former had been suspected of simple witchcraft: he was not let off so easily now. Manetho was at first dubbed a Genie, whom the Doctor had brought from Egypt. Afterwards it was whispered that the two were one and the same demon, who, by means of some infernal jugglery, was able to appear as two persons during the day-time, but at night resumed his undivided shape, and played all manner of unholy pranks.

By another version, Doctor Glyphic had died in Egypt, but not before bargaining with the Prince of Darkness that his lifeless body should return home in charge of its condemned soul, under the guise of Manetho. In day-light, affirmed these theorists, the body was inspired with phantom life, but became a mummy at night, when the condemned soul suffered torments till morning, and then the ghastly drama

began anew. This condition of things must continue until the sun shone all night long within the brick-wall enclosure.

A third more modified account was the one we have already listened to from Charon's lips; and he perhaps built upon a broader basis of fact than did some of the other yarn-spinners. But under whatever form the legend appeared, there was always mingled with it a vague hint -a mysterious whisper-relating to the alleged presence in the Doctor's tomb (so the enclosure was nick-named) of an apparition wearing the female form. What or whence she was, no one pretended soberly to conjecture. Even her personal appearance was the subject of vehement dispute, some maintaining her to be of more than human beauty, while others swore by their heads that she was so hideous fire would not burn her! These damned her for a malignant witch; those upheld her as a heavenly angel, urged by love divine to ex

piate, through voluntary suffering, the nameless crimes of the demoniac Doctor; but unless the redemption were effected within a certain time, she must be swallowed up with him in common destruction. Were the how and why of these alternatives called in question, the answer was a wise shake of the head!

The gentle reader will believe no one of the fantastic legends here recorded; possibly they were not believed by their very fabricators. They are useful only as tending to show the kind of moral atmosphere surrounding the house and its occupants. There is sometimes a subtile symbolic element inwoven with such tales, which, though not the truth, helps us to an understanding of the truth when we come to know it. Moreover, the fanciful parts of history are to the facts, as clouds to a landscape-the picture is not complete without them; they aid in bringing out the distances,

and cast shadows or lights over tracts else harsh and bare.

Beyond what he had gathered from the ancient mariner, Balder Helwyse knew nothing of these fearful fables; and this perhaps accounted for the boldness with which he pursued his way towards the mysterious house, following in the airy wake of the brightthroated little hoopoe.

XVII.

FACE TO FACE.

THE ground-plan of the house was like a capital H, placed endwise towards the river. The northern side consisted of the original brick building, and the additions of the second period; the southern was that stone edifice which so few persons had ever been lucky enough to see. The central piece held the great entrance-hall and staircase, heavily pannelled with dark oak, and flagged with squares of black and white marbles.

The entrance-hall opened eastward into a generous conservatory, filling the whole wide space between the wings at that end. The corresponding western court was devoted to the roomy portico: two or three steps led up to a marble platform, twenty feet deep, and nearly