means allowed. I went to my daughter and explained to her that I desired to make an encroachment upon our little hoard. To my utter amazement, she burst into tears, and told me that she had not got a dollar—that all of our wealth had been stolen from her. Almost overwhelmed by this new misfortune, I in vain endeavored to discover from her in what manner our savings had been plundered. She could afford me no explanation beyond what I might gather from an abundance of sobs and a copious flow of tears.
“It was a bitter blow, doctor, but nil desperandum was my motto, so I went to work at my crucible again, with redoubled energy, and made an ingot nearly every second day. I determined this time to put them in some secure place myself; but the very first day I set my apparatus in order for the projection, the girl Marion—that is my daughter’s name—came weeping to me and implored me to allow her to take care of our treasure. I refused decisively, saying that, having found her already incapable of filling the trust, I could place no faith in her again. But she persisted, clung to my neck, threatened to abandon me; in short, used so many of the bad but irresistible arguments known to women that I had not the heart to refuse her. She has since that time continued to take the ingots.
“Yet you behold,” continued the old alchemist, casting an inexpressibly mournful glance around the wretched apartment, “the way we live. Our food is insufficient and of bad quality; we never buy clothes; the rent of this hole is a mere nothing. What am I to think of the wretched girl who plunges me into this misery? Is she a miser, think you?—or a female gamester?—or—or—does she squander it riotously in places I know not of? O Doctor, Doctor! do not blame me if I heap imprecations on her head, for I have suffered bitterly!” The poor man here closed his eyes and sank back groaning on his bed.
This singular narrative excited in me the strangest emotions. I glanced at the girl Marion, who had been a patient listener to these horrible accusations of cupidity, and never did I behold a more angelic air of resignation than beamed over her countenance. It was impossible that anyone with those pure, limpid eyes; that calm, broad forehead; that childlike mouth, could be such a monster of avarice or deceit as the old man represented. The truth was plain enough: the alchemist was mad—what alchemist was there ever who was not?—and his insanity had taken this terrible shape. I felt an inexpressible pity move my heart for this poor girl, whose youth was burdened with such an awful sorrow.
“What is your name?” I asked the old man, taking his tremulous, fevered hand in mine.
“William Blakelock,” he answered. “I come of an old Saxon stock, sir, that bred true men and women in former days. God! how did it ever come to pass that such a one as that girl ever sprung from our line?” The glance of loathing and contempt that he cast at her made me shudder.
“May you not be mistaken in your daughter?” I said, very mildly. “Delusions with regard to alchemy are, or have been, very common—”
“What, sir?” cried the old man, bounding in his bed. “What? Do you doubt that gold can be made? Do you know, sir, that M. C. Theodore Tiffereau made gold at Paris in the year 1854 in the presence of M. Levol, the assayer of the Imperial Mint, and the result of the experiments was read before the Academy of Sciences on the sixteenth of October of the same year? But stay; you shall have better proof yet. I will pay you with one of my ingots, and you shall attend me until I am well. Get me an ingot!”
This last command was addressed to Marion, who was still kneeling close to her father’s bedside. I observed her with some curiosity as this mandate was issued. She became very pale, clasped her hands convulsively, but neither moved nor made any reply.
“Get me an ingot, I say!” reiterated the alchemist passionately.
She fixed her large eyes imploringly upon him. Her lips quivered, and two huge tears rolled slowly down her white cheeks.
“Obey me, wretched girl,” cried the old man in an agitated voice, “or I swear, by all that I reverence in heaven and earth, that I will lay my curse upon you forever!”
I felt for an instant that I ought perhaps to interfere, and spare the girl the anguish that she was so evidently suffering; but a powerful curiosity to see how this strange scene would terminate withheld me.
The last threat of her father, uttered as it was with a terrible vehemence, seemed to appall Marion. She rose with a sudden leap, as if a serpent had stung her, and, rushing into an inner apartment, returned with a small object which she placed in my hand, and then flung herself in a chair in a distant corner of the room, weeping bitterly.
“You see—you see,” said the old man sarcastically, “how reluctantly she parts with it. Take it, sir; it is yours.”
It was a small bar of metal. I examined it carefully, poised it in my hand—the color, weight, everything, announced that it really was gold.
“You doubt its genuineness, perhaps,” continued the alchemist. “There are acids on yonder table—test it.”
I confess that I DID doubt its genuineness; but after I had acted upon the old man’s suggestion, all further suspicion was rendered impossible. It was gold of the highest purity. I was astounded. Was then, after all, this man’s tale a truth? Was his daughter, that fair, angelic-looking creature, a demon of avarice, or a slave to worse passions? I felt bewildered. I had never met with anything so incomprehensible. I looked from father to daughter in the blankest amazement. I suppose that my countenance betrayed my astonishment, for the old man said: “I perceive that you are surprised. Well, that is natural. You had a right to think me mad until I proved myself sane.”
“But, Mr. Blakelock,” I said, “I really cannot take this gold. I have no right to it. I cannot in justice charge so large a fee.”
“Take it—take it,” he answered impatiently; “your fee will amount to that before I am well. Besides,” he added mysteriously, “I wish to secure your friendship. I wish that you should protect me from her,” and he pointed his poor, bandaged hand at Marion.
My eyes followed his gesture, and I caught the glance that replied— a glance of horror, distrust, despair. The beautiful face was distorted into positive ugliness.
“It’s all true,” I thought; “she is the demon that her father represents her.”
I now rose to go. This domestic tragedy sickened me. This treachery of blood against blood was too horrible to witness. I wrote a prescription for the old man, left directions as to the renewal of the dressings upon his burns, and, bidding him good night, hastened toward the door.
While I was fumbling on the dark, crazy landing for the staircase, I felt a hand laid on my arm.
