The Argosy, Vol. 27

Called to the Rescue by Ocean Athena (Chapter X: "Friends in Council")

This serialized novel, published in The Argos (April 1879), concerns domestic intrigue at Ostend. Professor Cosmo Dangerfield, a wealthy conjurer and spiritualist performer, hosts séances in bare reception rooms equipped with mechanical devices to create illusions. His wife, Mrs. Dangerfield, is gravely ill and emotionally distressed over her separated daughter, Adela Granard. Dangerfield summons Dr. Mowatt, ostensibly for medical consultation, but reveals his true purpose: he seeks Mowatt's assistance in persuading his wife to transfer control of her inherited fortune to him. Dangerfield offers to clear Mowatt's debts and provides compromising documents as leverage. Mowatt, a disgraced physician ruined by professional rival Sir Marcus Combermere, reluctantly becomes complicit. The passage culminates with Dangerfield explaining his financial predicament—his wife controls substantial capital secured from his reach—and requesting Mowatt's intervention to manipulate her into dividing or entrusting the estate to his guardianship.