d
me how beautiful life might be--showed me, indeed, what beauty really
is. There is no religion has ever brought such joy to the heart of a
man, nor any love, nor any of the great passions of the world have
opened such gates as they have done for me. You can't imagine what the
hideous life is like--the life of vulgar days, of ugly surroundings, the
dull and ceaseless trudge side by side with the multitude across the
sterile plain, without the power to raise one's eyes, without the power
to stretch out one's arms and feel the throb of freedom in one's pulses.
If I die to-morrow, I shall at least have lived for a little time,
thanks to these. Can you wonder that I think of them with reverence?
Yet you ask me to make use of one of them to help launch upon the world
a patent food, something built upon the credulity of fools, something
whose praises must be sung in blatant advertisements, desecrating the
pages of magazines, gaping from the hoardings, thrust inside the chinks
of human simplicity by the art of the advertising agent. Edith, it is a
hard thing, this. Do try and realize how hard it is. If there be
anything in the world divine, if there be anything sacred at all,
anything to lift one from the common way, it is what you ask me to
sacrifice."

"You are such a sentimentalist, dear," she whispered. "You need have no
share in the commercial part of this. The money can simply keep you
while you write, or help you to travel."

"It will lead that other fellow," he groaned, "into no end of mischief."

The professor and Mr. Bomford returned. They talked for a little time
together and then the party broke up. As they waited for Edith to get
her cloak, Burton spoke the few words which they were both longing to
hear.

"Mr. Bomford," he announced, "and professor, I should like to see you
to-morrow. I am going to think over this matter to-night once more. It
is very possible that I may see my way clear to do as you ask."

"Mr. Burton, sir," the professor said, grasping his hand, "I
congratulate you. I felt sure that your common sense would assert
itself. Let me assure you of one thing, too. Indirectly you will be
the cause of marvelous discoveries, enlightening discoveries, being made
as to the source of some of that older civilization which still
bewilders the student of prehistoric days."

Mr. Bomford had less to say but he was quite as emphatic.

"If you only think hard enough, Mr. Burton," he declared, "you can't
m