But beyond these things I
have at the castle a fine library--useless no doubt for most
purposes of modern study, but full of precious old books. There I
can at any moment be in the best of company! There is more of the
marvellous in an old library than ever any magic could work!"
"I do not quite understand you," said the lady.
But she would have spoken nearer the truth if she had said she had
not a glimmer of what he meant.
"Let me explain!" said Donal: "what could necromancy, which is one
of the branches of magic, do for one at the best?"
"Well!" exclaimed Miss Graeme; "--but I suppose if you believe in
ghosts, you may as well believe in raising them!"
"I did not mean to start any question about belief; I only wanted to
suppose necromancy for the moment a fact, and put it at its best:
suppose the magician could do for you all he professed, what would
it amount to?--Only this--to bring before your eyes a shadowy
resemblance of the form of flesh and blood, itself but a passing
shadow, in which the man moved on the earth, and was known to his
fellow-men? At best the necromancer might succeed in drawing from
him some obscure utterance concerning your future, far more likely
to destroy your courage than enable you to face what was before you;
so that you would depart from your peep into the unknown, merely
less able to encounter the duties of life.
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