was roused by the sound of a light footfall upon the marble pavement. Unorna’s eyes were turned from his, and with something like a movement of surprise he himself looked towards the new comer. A young girl was standing under the shadow of a great letonia at a short distance from him. She was very pale indeed, but not with that death-like, waxen pallor which had chilled him when he had looked upon that other face. There was a faint resemblance in the small, aquiline features, the dress was black, and the figure of the girl before him was assuredly neither much taller nor much shorter than that of the woman he loved and sought. But the likeness went no further, and he knew that he had been utterly mistaken.
Unorna exchanged a few indifferent words with Axenia and dismissed her.
“You have seen,” she said, when the young girl was gone. “Was it she who entered the house just now?”
“Yes. I was misled by a mere resemblance. Forgive me for my importunity—let me thank you most sincerely for your great kindness.” He rose as he spoke.
“Do not go,” said Unorna, looking at him earnestly.
He stood still, silent, as though his attitude should explain itself, and yet expecting that she would say something further. He felt that her eyes were upon him, and he raised his own to meet the look frankly, as was his wont. For the first time since he had entered her presence he felt that there was more than a mere disquieting attraction in her steady gaze; there was a strong, resistless fascination, from which he had no power to withdraw himself. Almost unconsciously he resumed his seat, still looking at her, while telling himself with a severe effort that he would look but one instant longer and then turn away. Ten seconds passed, twenty, half a minute, in total silence. He was confused, disturbed, and yet wholly unable to shut out her penetrating glance. His fast ebbing consciousness barely allowed him to wonder whether he was weakened by the strong emotions he had felt in the church, or by the first beginning of some unknown and unexpected malady. He was utterly weak and unstrung. He could neither rise from his seat, nor lift his hand, nor close the lids of his eyes. It was as though an irresistible force were drawing him into the depths of a fathomless whirlpool, down, down, by its endless giddy spirals, robbing him of a portion of his consciousness at every gyration, so that he left behind him at every instant something of his individuality, something of the central faculty of self-recognition. He felt no pain, but he did not feel that inexpressible delight of peace which already twice had descended upon him. He experienced a rapid diminution of all perception, of all feeling, of all intelligence. Thought, and the memory of thought, ebbed from his brain and left it vacant, as the waters of a lock subside when the gates are opened, leaving emptiness in their place.
Unorna’s eyes turned from him, and she raised her hand a moment, letting it fall again upon her knee. Instantly the strong man was restored to himself; his weakness vanished, his sight was clear, his intelligence was awake. Instantly the certainty flashed upon him that Unorna possessed the power of imposing the hypnotic sleep and had exercised that gift upon him, unexpectedly and against his will. He would have more willingly supposed that he had been the victim of a momentary physical faintness, for the idea of having been thus subjected to the influence of a woman, and of a woman whom he hardly knew, was repugnant to him, and had in it something humiliating to his pride, or at least to his vanity. But he could not escape the conviction forced upon him by the circumstances.
“Do not go far, for I may yet help you,” said Unorna, quietly. “Let us talk of this matter and consult what is best to be done. Will you accept a woman’s help?”
“Readily. But I cannot accept her will as mine, nor resign my consciousness into her keeping.”
“Not for the sake of seeing her whom you say you love?”
The Wanderer was silent, being yet undetermined how to act, and still unsteadied by what he had experienced. But he was able to reason, and he asked of his judgment what he should do, wondering what manner of woman Unorna might prove to be, and whether she was anything more than one of those who live and even enrich themselves by the exercise of the unusual faculties of powers nature has given them. He had seen many of that class, and he considered most of them to be but half fanatics, half charlatans, worshipping in themselves as something almost divine that which was but a physical power, or weakness, beyond their own limited comprehension. Though a whole school of wise and thoughtful men had already produced remarkable results and elicited astounding facts by sifting the truth through a fine web of closely logical experiment, it did not follow that either Unorna, or any other self-convinced, self-taught operator could do more than grope blindly towards the light, guided by intuition alone amongst the varied and misleading phenomena of hypnotism. The thought of accepting the help of one who was probably, like most of her kind, a deceiver of herself and therefore, and thereby, of others, was an affront to the dignity of his distress, a desecration of his love’s sanctity, a frivolous invasion of love’s holiest ground. But, on the other hand, he was stimulated to catch at the veriest shadows of possibility by the certainty that he was at last within the same city with her he loved, and he knew that hypnotic subjects are sometimes able to determine the abode of persons whom no one else can find. To-morrow it might be too late. Even before to-day’s sun had set Beatrice might be once more taken from him, snatched away to the ends of the earth by her father’s ever-changing caprice. To lose a moment now might be to lose all.
He was tempted to yield, to resign his will into Unorna’s hands, and his sight to her leading, to let her bid him sleep and see the truth. But then, with a sudden reaction of his individuality, he realized that he had another course, surer, simpler, more dignified. Beatrice was in Prague. It was little probable that she was permanently established in the city, and in all likelihood she and her father were lodged in one of the two or three great hotels. To be driven from the one to the other of these would be but an affair of minutes. Failing information from this source, there remained the registers of the Austrian police, whose vigilance takes note of every stranger’s name and dwelling-place.
“I thank you,” he said. “If all my inquiries fail, and if you will let me visit you once more to-day, I will then ask your help.”
“You are right,” Unorna answered.
CHAPTER III
He had been deceived in supposing that he must inevitably find the names of those he sought upon the ordinary registers which chronicle the arrival and departure of travellers. He lost no time, he spared no effort, driving from place to place as fast as two sturdy Hungarian horses could take him, hurrying from one office to another, and again and again searching endless pages and columns which seemed full of all the names of earth, but in which he never found the one of all others which he longed to read. The gloom in the narrow streets was already deepening, though it was scarcely two hours after mid-day, and the heavy air had begun to thicken with a cold gray haze, even in the broad, straight Przikopy, the wide thoroughfare which has taken the place and name of the moat before the ancient fortifications, so that distant objects and figures lost the distinctness of their outlines. Winter in Prague is but one long, melancholy dream, broken sometimes at noon by an hour of sunshine, by an intermittent visitation of reality, by the shock and glare of a little broad daylight. The morning is not morning, the evening is not evening; as in the land of the Lotus, it is ever afternoon, gray, soft, misty, sad, save when the sun, being at his meridian height, pierces the dim streets and sweeps the open places with low, slanting waves of pale brightness. And yet these same dusky streets are thronged with a moving multitude, are traversed ever by ceaseless streams of men and women, flowing onward, silently, swiftly, eagerly. The very beggars do not speak above a whisper, the very dogs are dumb. The stillness of all voices leaves nothing for the perception of the hearing save the dull
