ngled not one
drop of such love as a youth may feel for a maiden.

It may help the reader to gain some understanding of the anomalous nature
of Elsie Veneer, if we look with Helen into Mr. Bernard's opinions and
feelings with reference to her, as they had shaped themselves in his
consciousness at the period of which we are speaking.

At first he had been impressed by her wild beauty, and the contrast of
all her looks and ways with those of the girls around her. Presently a
sense of some ill-defined personal element, which half-attracted and
half-repelled those who looked upon her, and especially those on whom she
looked, began to make itself obvious to him, as he soon found it was
painfully sensible to his more susceptible companion, the lady-teacher.
It was not merely in the cold light of her diamond eyes, but in all her
movements, in her graceful postures as she sat, in her costume, and, he
sometimes thought, even in her speech, that this obscure and exceptional
character betrayed itself. When Helen had said, that, if they were living
in times when human beings were subject to possession, she should have
thought there was something not human about Elsie, it struck an
unsuspected vein of thought in his own mind, which he hated to put in
words, but which was continually trying to articulate itself among the
dumb thoughts which lie under the perpetual stream of mental whispers.

Mr. Bernard's professional training had made him slow to accept
marvellous stories and many forms of superstition. Yet, as a man of
science, he well knew that just on the verge of the demonstrable facts of
physics and physiology there is a nebulous border-land which what is
called "common sense" perhaps does wisely not to enter, but which
uncommon sense, or the fine apprehension of privileged intelligences, may
cautiously explore, and in so doing find itself behind the scenes which
make up for the gazing world the show which is called Nature.

It was with something of this finer perception, perhaps with some degree
of imaginative exaltation, that he set himself to solving the problem of
Elsie's influence to attract and repel those around her. His letter
already submitted to the reader hints in what direction his thoughts were
disposed to turn. Here was a magnificent organization, superb in
vigorous womanhood, with a beauty such as never comes but after
generations of culture; yet through all this rich nature there ran some
alien current of i