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The voice came thinly like the pipe of a reed—he could barely remember how once he had shouted for alchemy . . . not the base alchemy of the chemists, but the spiritual alchemy of the Magi and Paracelsians . . . "Hunting the Green Lion" . . . "The Rosy Cross." . . . His studies had not all been dark. Jacob Boehme is an excellent Protestant philosopher, worthy reading for an English divine. He had once been full of zeal for Jacob Boehme and for Theophrastus Bombast his master, though he never read either of them now. Perhaps he might resume his study of their works—it might cure him of certain hankerings after a lore that had superseded theirs.

For he had dabbled in strange learnings, he had ridden off the straight path of his University course down dark alleyways, which had been like the ruelles of Paris—tall houses, full of secrets, nodding their dangerous heads over the tiny figure that creeps between the gutters. Now a light is seen behind a casement—a voice is heard—a door is half opened and shut again.