" Then, turning to Lefevre,
he said, "I hope you don't think I wish to make light of your grand
idea. I only mean that you must widen your view, if you would work it
out to success."
With that Lefevre became more curious to hear Dr Rippon's story. So when
they went to the drawing-room he got the old gentleman into a secluded
corner, and reminded him of his promise.
"Yes," said the doctor, "it is a romantic story. About forty years
ago,--yes, about forty: it was immediately after the fall of Louis
Philippe,--I went with my friend Lord Rokeby to Madrid. He went as
ambassador, and I as his physician. There was then at the Spanish Court
a very handsome hidalgo, Don Hernando--I forget all his names, but his
surname was De Sandoval. He was of the bluest blood in Spain, and a
marquis, but poor as a church mouse. He had a great reputation for
gallant adventures and for mysterious scientific studies. On the last
ground I sought and cultivated his acquaintance. But he was a proud,
reserved person, and I could never quite make out what his studies were,
except that he read a great deal, and believed firmly in the Arabic
philosophers and alchemists of the middle ages; and he would sometimes
talk with the same sort of rhapsodical mysticism as this young man
delights you with.
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