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.”