“No. Mr. Peckham,” said Mr. Dudley Venner, “there will be a full meeting of the Board next week, and the bill, and such evidence with reference to the management of the Institution and the treatment of its instructors as Mr. Langdon sees fit to bring forward will be laid before them.”
Miss Helen Darley became that very day the guest of Miss Arabella Thornton, the Judge's daughter. Mr. Bernard made his appearance a week or two later at the Lectures, where the Professor first introduced him to the reader.
He stayed after the class had left the room.
“Ah, Mr. Langdon! how do you do? Very glad to see you back again. How have you been since our correspondence on Fascination and other curious scientific questions?”
It was the Professor who spoke,—whom the reader will recognize as myself, the teller of this story.
“I have been well,” Mr. Bernard answered, with a serious look which invited a further question.
“I hope you have had none of those painful or dangerous experiences you seemed to be thinking of when you wrote; at any rate, you have escaped having your obituary written.”
“I have seen some things worth remembering. Shall I call on you this evening and tell you about them?”
“I shall be most happy to see you.”
This was the way in which I, the Professor, became acquainted with some of the leading events of this story. They interested me sufficiently to lead me to avail myself of all those other extraordinary methods of obtaining information well known to writers of narrative.