sons for cultivating the success which accident had bestowed on him,
was that it enabled him to command a greater range of appliances for
his real work. He had known what it was to lack books and instruments;
and "The Vital Thing" was the magic wand which summoned them to his
aid. For some time he had been feeling his way along the edge of a
discovery: balancing himself with professional skill on a plank of
hypothesis flung across an abyss of uncertainty. The conjecture was the
result of years of patient gathering of facts: its corroboration would
take months more of comparison and classification. But at the end of
the vista victory loomed. The Professor felt within himself that
assurance of ultimate justification which, to the man of science, makes
a life-time seem the mere comma between premiss and deduction. But he
had reached the point where his conjectures required formulation. It
was only by giving them expression, by exposing them to the comment and
criticism of his associates, that he could test their final value; and
this inner assurance was confirmed by the only friend whose confidence
he invited.

Professor Pease, the husband of the lady who had opened Mrs. Linyard's
eyes to the triumph of "The Vital Thing," was the repository of her
husband's scientific experiences. What he thought of "The Vital Thing"
had never been divulged; and he was capable of such vast exclusions
that it was quite possible that pervasive work had not yet reached him.
In any case, it was not likely to affect his judgment of the author's
professional capacity.

"You want to put that all in a book, Linyard," was Professor Pease's
summing-up. "I'm sure you've got hold of something big; but to see it
clearly yourself you ought to outline it for others. Take my
advice--chuck everything else and get to work tomorrow. It's time you
wrote a book, anyhow."

_ It's time you wrote a book, anyhow!_ The words smote the Professor
with mingled pain and ecstasy: he could have wept over their
significance. But his friend's other phrase reminded him with a start
of Harviss. "You have got hold of a big thing--" it had been the
publisher's first comment on "The Vital Thing." But what a world of
meaning lay between the two phrases! It was the world in which the
powers who fought for the Professor were destined to wage their final
battle; and for the moment he had no doubt of the outcome. The next day
he went to town to see Harviss. He wanted to ask for a