My guest accepted my invitation to stay and dine with me, and I found him a very pleasant companion. He helped me to prepare and cook the meal, and in the interval we played cribbage, smoked, and chatted. He had come down to Cornwall, he informed me, to escape from his friends and mankind in general, for, having inherited some money, he was worried and pestered on all sides by impecunious persons and institutions; and to come to a place where he was unknown was his only means of obtaining a little peace, “far from the madding crowd.” Of course I brought hypnotism upon the _tapis_ during dinner, and after the meal was discussed, he requested me to try my hand upon him, which of course I gladly did, with the result of obtaining from him the following story of “Two Ruined Towers.” I must here point out that, though while in a hypnotic trance I can cause my patient to tell me a story, yet when at its conclusion I awaken him, he does not remember a word of what he has divulged, and I do not on all occasions enlighten him; for, as I am at times the recipient of most remarkable family secrets, crimes, and misdeeds, I dare not commit to print a tithe of what is related to me. II. TWO RUINED TOWERS. When about three-and-twenty years of age I had the misfortune to lose my father, an event which altered the whole course of my life, and nearly unhinged my mind. My father was an artist of some repute, and as I also loved the work, I had an ardent wish to follow in his footsteps. At seventeen I left school, and immediately commenced my artistic studies under my father. I also became a student at the ---- Art School, at which, when I was about twenty years of age, I had the good fortune to gain a travelling scholarship of £100 a year for two years. The first summer I spent in the British Isles, eking out my scholarship money with the help of a small allowance from my good parent. The winter I spent in my father’s studio, and in the following spring packed up my few belongings, and bidding my father farewell, travelled to various parts of the continent, making my way gradually south as the cold weather approached. Thus, roving about, I picked up a fair knowledge of two or three languages, and when my time of travel expired, found myself in Sicily, from whence, crossing over to Naples, I spent my last few pounds in procuring a passage home on a P. & O. steamer bound for dear old England. On my arrival I lost no time in sending a telegram to my father, advising him that he might expect me on the following day. I kept my word, and arrived at the time I had mentioned, but, alas! I found my dear old father on a sick-bed, and was only just in time to bid him a long farewell, for he died two days after my return home.