in view by pretending to be my friend? If his enemy, how was it that the powerful potentate did not find him out, and punish him accordingly? His power was inferior to that of his master, for he could not effect his own release, and return to the earth. He had no jurisdiction over the lightning balloon. There were diseases among the people which he could not cure. His power appeared to me to be a check upon, or a counterpoise to, that of the Demon, but why should the latter permit this? These were tangled webs, which I could not and did not try to unravel.
Another web, as distracting as that of Penelope, remains behind. The Doctor had asked me what mysterious influence bound me to him. And I now asked myself what extraordinary combination of circumstances was binding him to me. I found myself loving and respecting him more than I had ever loved or respected any man on earth, except two or three very near relatives. If he were in reality a hypocrite and a villain, I could not be drawn to him in this remarkable manner. He was certainly true and honourable, and had a noble and generous mind, although doubtless afflicted with various eccentricities. My astonishing dream had touched him most keenly, and opened up a chapter of his secret history, and I burned with a longing desire to know more about him and his beautiful Helen, but felt that it would be great insolence on my part to ask him to tell me what, possibly, he might have good reasons for concealing.
It was most surprising, too, that he should have seen in his visions the same amber-coloured star that I had seen, and that it had been named to him also as the Star of Victory. What could this mean, and what did it portend? The star and Helen appearing to us both; I sailing with her in her little boat, and walking by her side in her magnificent garden; he coming forth from the grand
