overed herself sufficiently to be
able to listen attentively.

She crossed herself several times for the sake of greater safety, and
what she heard from the doctor's own mouth remained a secret between her
and Schimmel.

Not a word did she lose till Melchior went into the library next the
laboratory, and then she thought it expedient to leave her hiding-place
and hurry to her room.

Schimmel had long been in bed, and his snoring greeted her as she
entered, but she wakened him to tell him breathlessly what she had just
seen and heard.

After she had explained her anxiety about the doctor and its
consequences, she continued that the apparition which the doctor had
invoked was the Spirit of Truth. Whether it had been obedient to the call
she could not say, but, at any rate it had been no demon of hell-God be
praised--bringing a reek of the pit, and besides Satan was the Prince of
Lies and would consider himself insulted if he were called the Spirit of
Truth, moreover the spirit who had appeared to the doctor had behaved in
the most exemplary manner.

The master, too, had confessed with true Christian humility and self
reproach that he had sinned against the Spirit of Truth, to whom none the
less he had dedicated his body and soul, inasmuch as, influenced by his
great love for his wife, he had devoted himself to finding a remedy which
would cure her, and had thus become a traitor to the object of his life.

After this he had sprung up and held aloft his hand with the forefinger
extended and sworn to the spirit that nothing here after would seduce him
from the pursuit of the elixir which was to render Truth triumphant in
the world.

Fran Schimmel described how the doctor's eyes had glowed at these words,
and how he had looked as if an invisible hand had written "Truth" in
large letters upon his forehead. He would be as certain to reach his goal
as she would be to pray the holy saints for a peaceful death.

After a long silence and much consideration the only thing that Herr
Schimmel found to say in answer to these important revelations was: "It
is all the same to me," to which his dear wife, with like brevity, and
sincere disgust replied: "You fool!"

The next morning the doctor began work afresh and with redoubled zeal.

Every drug that had been reserved from the laboratory of the late Court
apothecary was brought, mixed with the elixir and fused; and he tried
each new mixture on himself, for Frau Schimmel was n