e 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 answe