"When I have seen the effect, I will endeavour, with you, to ascertain the causes." Somewhat to the above effect were the first thoughts of Clarence Glyndon on quitting Zanoni.

But Clarence Glyndon was no "rational inquirer." The more vague and mysterious the language of Zanoni, the more it imposed upon him.

A proof would have been something tangible, with which he would have sought to grapple.

And it would have only disappointed his curiosity to find the supernatural reduced to Nature.

He endeavoured in vain, at some moments rousing himself from credulity to the scepticism he deprecated, to reconcile what he had heard with the probable motives and designs of an imposter.