"Have there been no tidings yet from Alice? Can thine art not disclose to me whither she be gone?" "The maiden lives," said the beggar doggedly. "Thou knowest of her hiding, then?" said her brother sharply, and with a cunning glance directed towards the speaker. "The spirit said so," replied Noman, as though wishful to evade or to shrink from the question. "And what else?" inquired the other; "for by my halidome thou stirrest not hence until she be forthcoming, alive or dead! I verily suspect--nay, more, I charge thee with forcibly detaining her against her own privity or consent." The beggar looked steadily upon him, not a whit either moved or abashed at this bold accusation. "Peradventure thou speakest without heed and unadvisedly. I tell thee again, thou wouldest have been driven hence ere now had it not been for others whom that spirit must obey." "Who art thou?" said the perplexed inquirer; "for thou art either worse or better than thou seemest." "Once the rightful heir, now a beggar, in these domains, wrested from me by rapine and the harpy fangs of injustice misnamed law. Theophilus Ashton, from whom ye took your share of the inheritance when death dislodged it from his gripe, won it himself most foully from my ancestors;--and have I not a right to hate thee?" "And so thy vengeance hath fallen upon a defenceless woman?" "Nay, I said not so; but if I had so minded I might have been glutted with vengeance, ay, to my heart's core. Hark thee. Secrets I have learned that will bind the hidden things of darkness, and bow them to my behest. The unseen powers and operations of nature have been open to my gaze. Long ago my converse and companionship were with the learned doctors and sages of the East. In Spain I have walked in the palace of the Moorish kings, the Alhambra at Grenada; and in Arabia I have learned the mystic cabala, and worshipped in the temple of the holy prophet!" "And yet thou comest a beggar to my door! Truly thy spells have profited thee little." The beggar smiled scornfully. "Riches inexhaustible, unlimited are mine; while nature is unveiled at my command." "Thou speakest riddles, old man; or thou dost hug the very spectres of thy brain, which men call madness." "I am not mad; save it be madness that I have not hurled thee from this thy misgotten heritage. A power of mighty and all prevading energy hath hindered me, and, it may be, rescued thee from destruction." "Unto what unknown intercessor do I owe this forbearance?" "Love!" said the mendicant, with an expression of withering and baneful scorn; "a silly hankering for a puling girl." "Thee!--in love?" "And is it so strange, so hard and incapable of belief, that in a frosty but vigorous age, the sap should be fresh though the outward trunk look withered and without verdure?" Nicholas shuddered. A harrowing suspicion crossed him that his beloved sister had fallen a victim to the lawless passions of this hoary delinquent.