“All right! It is all right!” said the Professor, as he drew the key from his pocket and unlocked the door, “you are frightened, that is all. I thought you would not be so brave when you came to see and feel them. But how about it’s being all my imagination, eh, Doctor?” Karl Steinberg, restored to the light, felt that he cut rather a sorry figure. His cheeks were blanched with terror, and his limbs shook from the same cause. But he tried to laugh it off. “Now, confess, Professor, that you have been playing me a trick,” he said, “it was you who came up and leant so hard against me, wasn’t it? You thought you’d catch me tripping, you know, and put me in a blue funk. But you haven’t succeeded, I’m as cool as a cucumber!” Ricardo looked at him reproachfully. “You are wrong,” he replied, “and you know you are wrong! If it were I, and you knew it, why didn’t you throw your arms round me? Why did you insist upon leaving the room? And why do you look so blue about the mouth and chin? Ah! no, my friend, you know it was not I, as well as I do! And such a pity too! They were coming so beautifully. They have never come so quickly before. You are just the man to help me. Come now, come back for a little, and I will promise to sit close to you all the while!” And he laid his hand on that of the Doctor, as he spoke. But Steinberg pulled his vehemently away. “No! no! not for all the world,” he ejaculated, “I will not play with the Devil any longer! You must conduct your diabolical practices by yourself.” “But you will acknowledge they are not fraud then--that there is something to be frightened at?” “I will acknowledge nothing! I am not in a fit state to argue the matter to-night. To-morrow, perhaps, I may be able to judge more calmly. All that I can say is, that I refuse to enter that room again.” “If I could only persuade you,” continued the Professor, “if you had only waited a little while and watched the smoke from the bowl, you would have seen such beautiful forms shaping themselves amongst it! Women and little children like cherubs--sometimes I have sat up all night unable to tear myself away from so beautiful a sight!” “All emissaries of the Evil One,” replied Steinberg, who was still shaking from the scare he had received, “sent perhaps to lure you to your destruction. Take care what you are about, Ricardo! Some morning you may be found missing--dragged down to the Infernal Regions by these demons, who assume the appearance of Angels of Light in order to deceive you.” “_The Infernal Regions!_” exclaimed the other, excitedly, “and what would they signify to me, if I am never to see, nor speak, with my Leonora more. Ah! Steinberg, I forget! You know nothing but the name of this Love, which could turn Heaven into Hell without the presence of the Beloved One, and vice vêrsa. Had you loved and lost as I have, you would sit in that room, not a night, but every night, till you heard some news of her who made your world.”