itz von Hartmann was a handsome lad enough. There were broad
acres, too, which would descend to him when his father died. To many he
would have seemed an eligible suitor; but Madame frowned upon his
presence in the house, and lectured the Professor at times on his
allowing such a wolf to prowl around their lamb. To tell the truth,
Fritz had an evil name in Keinplatz. Never was there a riot or a duel,
or any other mischief afoot, but the young Rhinelander figured as a
ringleader in it. No one used more free and violent language, no one
drank more, no one played cards more habitually, no one was more idle,
save in the one solitary subject. No wonder, then, that the good Frau
Professorin gathered her Fraeulein under her wing, and resented the
attentions of such a _mauvais sujet_. As to the worthy lecturer, he was
too much engrossed by his strange studies to form an opinion upon the
subject one way or the other.

For many years there was one question which had continually obtruded
itself upon his thoughts. All his experiments and his theories turned
upon a single point. A hundred times a day the Professor asked himself
whether it was possible for the human spirit to exist apart from the
body for a time and then to return to it once again. When the
possibility first suggested itself to him his scientific mind had
revolted from it. It clashed too violently with preconceived ideas and
the prejudices of his early training. Gradually, however, as he
proceeded farther and farther along the pathway of original research,
his mind shook off its old fetters and became ready to face any
conclusion which could reconcile the facts. There were many things which
made him believe that it was possible for mind to exist apart from
matter. At last it occurred to him that by a daring and original
experiment the question might be definitely decided.

"It is evident," he remarked in his celebrated article upon invisible
entities, which appeared in the _Keinplatz wochentliche Medicalschrift_
about this time, and which surprised the whole scientific world--"it is
evident that under certain conditions the soul or mind does separate
itself from the body. In the case of a mesmerised person, the body lies
in a cataleptic condition, but the spirit has left it. Perhaps you reply
that the soul is there, but in a dormant condition. I answer that this
is not so, otherwise how can one account for the condition of
clairvoyance, which has fallen into disrepu