"

Another moment and those murderous fingers would have strangled their
prey. But between the assassin and his victim rose a form that seemed
almost to both a visitor from the world that both denied,--stately with
majestic strength, glorious with awful beauty.

The ruffian recoiled, looked, trembled, and then turned and fled from
the chamber. The old man fell again to the ground insensible.

CHAPTER 1.VIII.

To know how a bad man will act when in power, reverse all the
doctrines he preaches when obscure.--S. Montague.

Antipathies also form a part of magic (falsely) so-called. Man
naturally has the same instinct as the animals, which warns them
involuntarily against the creatures that are hostile or fatal to
their existence. But HE so often neglects it, that it becomes
dormant. Not so the true cultivator of the Great Science, etc.

--Trismegistus the Fourth (a Rosicrucian).

When he again saw the old man the next day, the stranger found him calm,
and surprisingly recovered from the scene and sufferings of the night.
He expressed his gratitude to his preserver with tearful fervour,
and stated that he had already sent for a relation who would make
arrangements for his future safety and mode of life. "For I have money
yet left," said the old man; "and henceforth have no motive to be a
miser." He proceeded then briefly to relate the origin and circumstances
of his connection with his intended murderer.

It seems that in earlier life he had quarrelled with his
relations,--from a difference in opinions of belief. Rejecting all
religion as a fable, he yet cultivated feelings that inclined him--for
though his intellect was weak, his dispositions were good--to that
false and exaggerated sensibility which its dupes so often mistake
for benevolence. He had no children; he resolved to adopt an enfant
du peuple. He resolved to educate this boy according to "reason." He
selected an orphan of the lowest extraction, whose defects of person and
constitution only yet the more moved his pity, and finally engrossed his
affection. In this outcast he not only loved a son, he loved a theory!
He brought him up most philosophically. Helvetius had proved to him
that education can do all; and before he was eight years old, the little
Jean's favourite expressions were, "La lumiere et la vertu." (Light and
virtue.) The boy showed talents, especially in art.

The protector sought for a master