lysis of the contents," returned Sir Philip, dryly, "would
leave you as ignorant as before of the uses to which they can be
applied; but I will own to you frankly, that it is my intention to
select some confidant among men of science, to whom I may safely
communicate the wonderful properties which certain essences in that
casket possess. I invite your acquaintance, nay, your friendship, in the
hope that I may find such a confidant in you. But the casket contains
other combinations, which, if wasted, could not be resupplied,--at least
by any process which the great Master from whom I received them placed
within reach of my knowledge. In this they resemble the diamond; when
the chemist has found that the diamond affords no other substance by
its combustion than pure carbonic-acid gas, and that the only chemical
difference between the costliest diamond and a lump of pure charcoal is
a proportion of hydrogen less than 1/100000 part of the weight of the
substance, can the chemist make you a diamond?

"These, then, the more potent, but also the more perilous of the
casket's contents, shall be explored by no science, submitted to no
test. They are the keys to masked doors in the ramparts of Nature, which
no mortal can pass through without rousing dread sentries never seen
upon this side her wall. The powers they confer are secrets locked in
my breast, to be lost in my grave; as the casket which lies on my breast
shall not be transferred to the hands of another, till all the rest
of my earthly possessions pass away with my last breath in life and my
first in eternity."

"Sir Philip Derval," said I, struggling against the appeals to fancy
or to awe, made in words so strange, uttered in a tone of earnest
conviction, and heard amidst the glare of the lightning, the howl of the
winds, and the roll of the thunder,--"Sir Philip Derval, you accost
me in a language which, but for my experience of the powers at your
command, I should hear with the contempt that is due to the vaunts of a
mountebank, or the pity we give to the morbid beliefs of his dupe. As it
is, I decline the confidence with which you would favour me, subject to
the conditions which it seems you would impose. My profession abandons
to quacks all drugs which may not be analyzed, all secrets which may not
be fearlessly told. I cannot visit you at Derval Court. I cannot trust
myself, voluntarily, again in the power of a man, who has arts of which
I may not examine the nat