reat empty deep stretch dim before me, and in that
instant a bridge of light leapt from the earth to the unknown shore,
and the abyss was spanned. You may look in Browne Faber's book, if you
like, and you will find that to the present day men of science are
unable to account for the presence, or to specify the functions of a
certain group of nerve-cells in the brain. That group is, as it were,
land to let, a mere waste place for fanciful theories. I am not in the
position of Browne Faber and the specialists, I am perfectly instructed
as to the possible functions of those nerve-centers in the scheme of
things. With a touch I can bring them into play, with a touch, I say, I
can set free the current, with a touch I can complete the communication
between this world of sense and----we shall be able to finish the
sentence later on. Yes, the knife is necessary; but think what that
knife will effect. It will level utterly the solid wall of sense, and
probably, for the first time since man was made, a spirit will gaze on a
spirit-world. Clarke, Mary will see the god Pan!'

'But you remember what you wrote to me? I thought it would be requisite
that she----'

He whispered the rest into the doctor's ear.

'Not at all, not at all. That is nonsense, I assure you. Indeed, it is
better as it is; I am quite certain of that.'

'Consider the matter well, Raymond. It's a great responsibility.
Something might go wrong; you would be a miserable man for the rest of
your days.'

'No, I think not, even if the worst happened. As you know, I rescued
Mary from the gutter, and from almost certain starvation, when she was a
child; I think her life is mine, to use as I see fit. Come, it is
getting late; we had better go in.'

Dr. Raymond led the way into the house, through the hall, and down a
long dark passage. He took a key from his pocket and opened a heavy
door, and motioned Clarke into his laboratory. It had once been a
billiard-room, and was lighted by a glass dome in the centre of the
ceiling, whence there still shone a sad grey light on the figure of the
doctor as he lit a lamp with a heavy shade and placed it on a table in
the middle of the room.

Clarke looked about him. Scarcely a foot of wall remained bare; there
were shelves all around laden with bottles and phials of all shapes and
colours, and at one end stood a little Chippendale bookcase. Raymond
pointed to this.

'You see that parchment Oswald Crollius? He was one of the