We found no more. Mr. J---- burnt the tablet and its anathema. He razed to the foundation the part of the building containing the secret room, with the chamber over it. He had then the courage to inhabit the house himself for a month, and a quieter, better conditioned house could not be found in all London. Subsequently he let it to advantage, and his tenant has made no complaints. But my story is not yet done. A few days after Mr. J---- had removed into the house, I paid him a visit. We were standing by the open window and conversing. A van containing some articles of furniture which he was moving from his former house was at the door. I had just urged on him my theory, that all those phenomena regarded as supermundane had emanated from a human brain; adducing the charm, or rather curse, we had found and destroyed, in support of my theory. Mr. J---- was observing in reply, “that even if mesmerism, or whatever analogous power it might be called, could really thus work in the absence of the operator, and produce effects so extraordinary, still could those effects continue when the operator himself was dead? and if the spell had been wrought, and, indeed, the room walled up, more than seventy years ago, the probability was, that the operator had long since departed this life,”--Mr. J----, I say, was thus answering, when I caught hold of his arm and pointed to the street below. A well-dressed man had crossed from the opposite side, and was accosting the carrier in charge of the van. His face, as he stood, was exactly fronting our window. It was the face of the miniature we had discovered; it was the face of the portrait of the noble three centuries ago. “Good heavens!” cried Mr. J----, “that is the face of De V----, and scarcely a day older than when I saw it in the Rajah’s court in my youth!” Seized by the same thought, we both hastened down stairs; I was first in the street, but the man had already gone. I caught sight of him, however, not many yards in advance, and in another moment I was by his side. I had resolved to speak to him; but when I looked into his face, I felt as if it were impossible to do so. That eye--the eye of the serpent--fixed and held me spellbound. And withal, about the man’s whole person there was a dignity, an air of pride and station and superiority, that would have made any one, habituated to the usages of the world, hesitate long before venturing upon a liberty or impertinence. And what could I say? What was it I could ask? Thus ashamed of my first impulse, I fell a few paces back, still, however, following the stranger, undecided what else to do. Meanwhile, he turned the corner of the street; a plain carriage was in waiting with a servant out of livery, dressed like a _valet de place_, at the carriage door. In another moment he had stepped into the carriage, and it drove off. I returned to the house. Mr. J---- was still at the street door. He had asked the carrier what the stranger had said to him.