‘I see you are a mesmerist.’
He started.
‘I am nothing,—a shadow!’
‘And I’m a scientist. I should like, with your permission—or without it!—to try an experiment or two on you.’
He moved further back. There came a gleam into his eyes which suggested that he possessed his hideous power to an unusual degree,—that, in the estimation of his own people, he was qualified to take his standing as a regular devil-doctor.
‘We will try experiments together, you and I,—on Paul Lessingham.’
‘Why on him?’
‘You do not know?’
‘I do not.’
‘Why do you lie to me?’
‘I don’t lie to you,—I haven’t the faintest notion what is the nature of your interest in Mr Lessingham.’
‘My interest?—that is another thing; it is your interest of which we are speaking.’
‘Pardon me,—it is yours.’
‘Listen! you love he
