ous death was the fear lest
the shock of witnessing the occurrence should be too much for the poor
girl. I asked her to go on and walk with her friends, saying that I
could go no further. She made excuses, and the more I urged her the
firmer she became. She looked doubtful and frightened. I suppose there
was something in my looks or manner that alarmed her; but she would not
go, and that literally saved me. You had no idea, sir, that a living man
could be made so abject a slave of Satan," he said, with a ghastly groan
and a shudder.

There was a pause here, and I said, "You _were_ preserved nevertheless.
It was the act of God. You are in His hands and in the power of no other
being: be therefore confident for the future."

CHAPTER X

_Home_

I made him have candles lighted, and saw the room looking cheery and
inhabited before I left him. I told him that he must regard his illness
strictly as one dependent on physical, though _subtle_ physical causes.
I told him that he had evidence of God's care and love in the
deliverance which he had just described, and that I had perceived with
pain that he seemed to regard its peculiar features as indicating that
he had been delivered over to spiritual reprobation. Than such a
conclusion nothing could be, I insisted, less warranted; and not only
so, but more contrary to facts, as disclosed in his mysterious
deliverance from that murderous influence during his Shropshire
excursion. First, his niece had been retained by his side without his
intending to keep her near him; and, secondly, there had been infused
into his mind an irresistible repugnance to execute the dreadful
suggestion in her presence.

As I reasoned this point with him, Mr. Jennings wept. He seemed
comforted. One promise I exacted, which was that should the monkey at
any time return, I should be sent for immediately; and, repeating my
assurance that I would give neither time nor thought to any other
subject until I had thoroughly investigated his case, and that to-morrow
he should hear the result, I took my leave.

Before getting into the carriage I told the servant that his master was
far from well, and that he should make a point of frequently looking
into his room. My own arrangements I made with a view to being quite
secure from interruption.

I merely called at my lodgings, and with a travelling-desk and carpet-bag,
set off in a hackney carriage for an inn about two miles out of town,
called "T