he perceived connecting links
where all had been incomprehensible and startling. By experiments which
extended over twenty years, he obtained a basis of facts upon which it
was his ambition to build up a new exact science which should embrace
mesmerism, spiritualism, and all cognate subjects. In this he was much
helped by his intimate knowledge of the more intricate parts of animal
physiology which treat of nerve currents and the working of the brain;
for Alexis von Baumgarten was Regius Professor of Physiology at the
University of Keinplatz, and had all the resources of the laboratory to
aid him in his profound researches.

Professor von Baumgarten was tall and thin, with a hatchet face and
steel-grey eyes, which were singularly bright and penetrating. Much
thought had furrowed his forehead and contracted his heavy eyebrows, so
that he appeared to wear a perpetual frown, which often misled people as
to his character, for though austere he was tender-hearted. He was
popular among the students, who would gather round him after his
lectures and listen eagerly to his strange theories. Often he would call
for volunteers from amongst them in order to conduct some experiment, so
that eventually there was hardly a lad in the class who had not, at one
time or another, been thrown into a mesmeric trance by his Professor.

Of all these young devotees of science there was none who equalled in
enthusiasm Fritz von Hartmann. It had often seemed strange to his
fellow-students that wild, reckless Fritz, as dashing a young fellow as
ever hailed from the Rhinelands, should devote the time and trouble
which he did in reading up abstruse works and in assisting the Professor
in his strange experiments. The fact was, however, that Fritz was a
knowing and long-headed fellow. Months before he had lost his heart to
young Elise, the blue-eyed, yellow-haired daughter of the lecturer.
Although he had succeeded in learning from her lips that she was not
indifferent to his suit, he had never dared to announce himself to her
family as a formal suitor. Hence he would have found it a difficult
matter to see his young lady had he not adopted the expedient of making
himself useful to the Professor. By this means he frequently was asked
to the old man's house, where he willingly submitted to be experimented
upon in any way as long as there was a chance of his receiving one
bright glance from the eyes of Elise or one touch of her little hand.

Young Fr