slightly irritated tone.

"Not at all," answered the elder man complacently. "I have simply
presented the house to you as it stood a hundred years ago. The
impression you have had of it is quite as truthful as the one now
before you. Indeed, it is as truthful as the view you now have of
yonder star," he pointed to a twinkling luminary in the north; "for
time has put out its fires more than a thousand years ago, so that
you now behold it as it then was, and not as it is to-night."

"This hypnotism of yours is quite undoing me," answered Paul, passing
his hand across his eyes.

"And yet what you now behold is not hypnotism at all, but fact, as
the world would call it. It is what the vast majority of all men
would see if here to-night. But I perceive that it is troubling you.
Let us return to our old place by the fire, and the house as it was a
century ago. In that state of the past I think you will find more
comfort than in the melancholy ruin before us."

They climbed back over the fallen piles of bricks, stone, and mortar;
and then Ah Ben lifted his withered hand, and touching Henley lightly
upon the forehead, said:

"And now we are back in our old seats, just as they used to be in the
days of yore!"

Paul looked about him. The fire was burning brightly. The pictures
had been restored to their places on the walls. The old lamp and the
strangely decorated staircase were all restored, just as he had left