Lord Marsden is announced. Malvina feels that slight embarrassment which, like an early morning mist, always comes over the hearts of young maidens at the approach of their betrothed. Aubrey, overjoyed, rushes to greet him; but when he sees him he utters a cry of surprise. It is not Lord Marsden--that is to say, a person hitherto unknown--who stands before him; it is his friend Lord Ruthven! Aubrey's astonishment is intense; but all is explained. Ruthven did not die; he only fainted: the coolness of the night air brought him back to consciousness. Aubrey's departure and his return to Scotland had been too prompt for Ruthven to send him word; but when he was well he returned to Ireland, to find his brother dead; he inherited his name and his fortune, and, under that name, with twice the fortune he had before, he offered to espouse Malvina, and rejoiced in anticipation at the joy he would cause his beloved Aubrey, by his reappearance before him. Ruthven is charming: his friend has not overrated him. He and Malvina were both so favourably impressed with one another that, under the pretext of very urgent business, he asked to be allowed to marry her within twenty-four hours. Malvina makes a proper show of resistance before yielding. They return to Marsden's castle. The curtain falls. Now I had been watching my neighbour almost as much as the play, and, to my great satisfaction, I had seen him close his Elzevir and listen to the final scenes. When the curtain fell, he uttered an exclamation of disdain accompanied by a deep-drawn sigh. "Pooh!" he said. I took advantage of this moment to renew our conversation. "Excuse me, monsieur," I said, "but at the conclusion of the prologue you said,'How absurd!'" "Yes," said my neighbour, "I suppose I did say so; or, if I did not say it, I certainly thought it." "Do you then condemn the use of supernatural beings in the drama?" "Not at all; on the contrary, I admire it extremely. All the great masters have made potent use of it: Shakespeare in _Hamlet_, in _Macbeth_ and in _Julius Cæsar_; Molière in _le Festin de pierre_, which he ought rather to have called _le Convive de pierre_, for his title to be really significant; Voltaire in _Sémiramis_; Goethe in _Faust._ No, on the contrary, I highly approve of the use of the supernatural, because I believe in it." "What! you have faith in the supernatural?" "Most certainly." "In everyday life?" "Certainly. We elbow every moment against beings who are unknown to us because they are invisible to us: the air, fire, the earth, are all inhabited. Sylphs, gnomes, water-sprites, hobgoblins, bogies, angels, demons, fly, float, crawl and leap around us. What are those shooting stars of the night, meteors which astronomers in vain try to explain to us, and of which they can discover neither cause nor end, if they are not angels carrying God's orders from one world to another? Some day we shall see it all." "Did you say, we shall see?"