alf expected to see the walls of
the laboratory melt and disappear, and to awake in London, shuddering at
his own sleeping fancies. But at last the door opened, and the doctor
returned, and behind him came a girl of about seventeen, dressed all in
white. She was so beautiful that Clarke did not wonder at what the
doctor had written to him. She was blushing now over face and neck and
arms, but Raymond seemed unmoved.

'Mary,' he said, 'the time has come. You are quite free. Are you willing
to trust yourself to me entirely?'

'Yes, dear.'

'You hear that, Clarke? You are my witness. Here is the chair, Mary. It
is quite easy. Just sit in it and lean back. Are you ready?'

'Yes, dear, quite ready. Give me a kiss before you begin.'

The doctor stooped and kissed her mouth, kindly enough. 'Now shut your
eyes,' he said. The girl closed her eyelids, as if she were tired, and
longed for sleep, and Raymond held the green phial to her nostrils. Her
face grew white, whiter than her dress; she struggled faintly, and then
with the feeling of submission strong within her, crossed her arms upon
her breast as a little child about to say her prayers. The bright light
of the lamp beat full upon her, and Clarke watched changes fleeting over
that face as the changes of the hills when the summer clouds float
across the sun. And then she lay all white and still, and the doctor
turned up one of her eyelids. She was quite unconscious. Raymond pressed
hard on one of the levers and the chair instantly sank back. Clarke saw
him cutting away a circle, like a tonsure, from her hair, and the lamp
was moved nearer. Raymond took a small glittering instrument from a
little case, and Clarke turned away shuddering. When he looked again the
doctor was binding up the wound he had made.

'She will awake in five minutes.' Raymond was still perfectly cool.
'There is nothing more to be done; we can only wait.'

The minutes passed slowly; they could hear a slow, heavy ticking. There
was an old clock in the passage. Clarke felt sick and faint; his knees
shook beneath him, he could hardly stand.

Suddenly, as they watched, they heard a long-drawn sigh, and suddenly
did the colour that had vanished return to the girl's cheeks, and
suddenly her eyes opened. Clarke quailed before them. They shone with an
awful light, looking far away, and a great wonder fell upon her face,
and her hands stretched out as if to touch what was invisible; but in an
instant the w