“But I insist on your telling me—I will know.”
Turning upon me a calm and penetrating, though rather surprised look, he said quietly,
“I have the gift of healing by mesmeric passes; over fatigued by too close attendance on a patient suffering from a virulent attack of morbid typhus, I saved him, but succumbed to the malady myself.”
I cast a triumphant glance at Mary. It was with difficulty I could resist the impulse I felt to throw myself at his feet, almost in adoration. Mary then happily observed, in her usual calm and philosophic style, that “magnetism appeared to be the grand motive power of organic nature.”
“Say rather,” replied D’Arcy, “of the entire visible universe. Do we not know that the poles of the earth are magnetic? Is there not electro-magnetism in the sun’s beams? And in fact I have very little doubt that the power named gravitation by Newton, is neither more nor less than magnetic attraction.”
“That,” replied Mary, “is both a philosophic and a beautiful idea.”
“I think,” rejoined he, “it at least bears the impress of truth, and as science progresses, who knows whether it will not be ascertained that similar internal laws govern these apparently distinct forces? All true science tends towards unity, as all religions point to the one true God.”
So passed the time, till tea being over, Mary with Ella proposed taking a stroll—the latter laughingly saying that the two invalids might amuse each other by expatiating on the delights of panada, tisane, and chicken broth.
In the sweet hour of twilight, alone once more with him, and awaiting, as it were, the fiat of my destiny, is it wonderful that pale with emotion I lay almost as one inanimate?
“I fear”—and the tones of his voice were low and tender as he bent over me—“I fear me much you still suffer.”