Do I then believe that David himself did write that name of his? Heaven forbid that any friend of mine should be able to believe it! Long before she saw him, Margaret had known, from what she heard among the servants, that Master Harry’s tutor could be no other than her own tutor of the old time. By and by she learned a great deal about him from Harry’s talk with Mrs. Elton and Lady Emily. But she did not give the least hint that she knew him, or betray the least desire to see him. Mrs. Elton was amusingly bewildered by the occurrences of the evening. Her theories were something astounding; and followed one another with such alarming rapidity, that had they been in themselves such as to imply the smallest exercise of the thinking faculty, she might well have been considered in danger of an attack of brain-fever. As it was, none such supervened. Lady Emily said nothing, but seemed unhappy. As for Hugh, he simply could not tell what to make of the writing. But he did not for a moment doubt that the vision he had seen was only a vision—a home-made ghost, sent out from his own creative brain. Still he felt that Margaret’s face, come whence it might, was a living reproof to him; for he was losing his life in passion, sinking deeper in it day by day. His powers were deserting him. Poetry, usually supposed to be the attendant of love, had deserted him. Only by fits could he see anything beautiful; and then it was but in closest association of thought with the one image which was burning itself deeper and deeper into his mental sensorium. Come what might, he could not tear it away. It had become a part of himself—of his inner life—even while it seemed to be working the death of life. Deeper and deeper it would burn, till it reached the innermost chamber of life. Let it burn. Yet he felt that he could not trust her. Vague hopes he had, that, by trusting, she might be made trustworthy; but he feared they were vain as well as vague. And yet he would not cast them away, for he could not cast her away. CHAPTER XVIII. MORE MATERIALISM AND SOME SPIRITUALISM. God wisheth none should wreck on a strange shelf: To Him man’s dearer than to himself. BEN Jonson.—The Forest: To Sir Robert Wroth.