n this handsome youth,--an enemy, too, who was like to be
subtle and dangerous.

Mr. Bernard had made up his mind, that, come what might, enemy or no
enemy, live or die, he would solve the mystery of Elsie Venner, sooner
or later. He was not a man to be frightened out of his resolution by a
scowl, or a stiletto, or any unknown means of mischief, of which a whole
armory was hinted at in that passing look Dick Venner had given him.
Indeed, like most adventurous young persons, he found a kind of charm
in feeling that there might be some dangers in the way of his
investigations. Some rumors which had reached him about the supposed
suitor of Elsie Venner, who was thought to be a desperate kind of
fellow, and whom some believed to be an unscrupulous adventurer, added
a curious, romantic kind of interest to the course of physiological and
psychological inquiries he was about instituting.

The afternoon on The Mountain was still uppermost in his mind. Of course
he knew the common stories about fascination. He had once been himself
an eyewitness of the charming of a small bird by one of our common
harmless serpents. Whether a human being could be reached by this
subtile agency, he had been skeptical, notwithstanding the mysterious
relation generally felt to exist between man and this creature, "cursed
above all cattle and above every beast of the field,"--a relation which
some interpret as the fruit of the curse, and others hold to be so
instinctive that this animal has been for that reason adopted as the
natural symbol of evil. There was another solution, however, supplied
him by his professional reading. The curious work of Mr. Braid of
Manchester had made him familiar with the phenomena of a state allied to
that produced by animal magnetism, and called by that writer by the name
of _hypnotism_. He found, by referring to his note-book, the statement
was, that, by fixing the eyes on a _bright object_ so placed as _to
produce a strain_ upon the eyes and eyelids, and to maintain _a steady
fixed stare_, there comes on in a few seconds a very singular condition,
characterized by _muscular rigidity_ and _inability to move_, with a
strange _exaltation of most of the senses_, and _generally_ a closure of
the eyelids,--this condition being followed by _torpor_.

Now this statement of Mr. Braid's, well known to the scientific world,
and the truth of which had been confirmed by Mr. Bernard in certain
experiments he had instituted, as i