"You have reason to believe! Why?"
"Oh, a charming young fellow, who, with most of the other gentry resident at L——, called on me at my hotel, told me that he. had travelled in the East, and had there heard much of Sir Philip's knowledge of chemistry, and the cures it had enabled him to perform."
"You speak of Mr. Margrave. He called on you?"
"Yes."
"You did not, I trust, mention to him the existence of Sir Philip's manuscript."
"Indeed I did; and I said you had promised to examine it. He seemed delighted at that, and spoke most highly of your peculiar fitness for the task."
"Give me the manuscript," said I, abruptly, "and after I have looked at it to-night, I may have something to say to you tomorrow in reference to Mr. Margrave."
"There is the book," said Strahan; "I have just glanced at it, and find much of it written in Latin; and I am ashamed to say that I have so neglected the little Latin I learned in our college days that I could not construe what I looked at."
I sat down and placed the book before me; Strahan fell into a doze, from which he was wakened by the housekeeper, who brought in the tea-things.
"Well," said Strahan, languidly, "do you find much in the book that explains the many puzzling riddles in poor Sir Philip's eccentric life and pursuits?"