They hesitated at
nothing to gain their ends. But Nature with difficulty allows her secrets
to be wrested from her. In vain they lit their furnaces, and in vain they
studied their crabbed books, called up the dead, and conjured ghastly
spirits. Their reward was disappointment and wretchedness, poverty, the
scorn of men, torture, imprisonment, and shameful death. And yet, perhaps
after all, there may be some particle of truth hidden away in these dark
places.'
'You never go further than the cautious perhaps,' said Susie. 'You never
give me any definite opinion.'
'In these matters it is discreet to have no definite opinion,' he smiled,
with a shrug of the shoulders. 'If a wise man studies the science of the
occult, his duty is not to laugh at everything, but to seek patiently,
slowly, perseveringly, the truth that may be concealed in the night of
these illusions.'
The words were hardly spoken when Matilde, the ancient _bonne_, opened
the door to let a visitor come in. It was Arthur Burdon. Susie gave a cry
of surprise, for she had received a brief note from him two days before,
and he had said nothing of crossing the Channel.
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