ide. After a moment his hand caught it, clutched
it. But, even at the crest of the wave of temptation, words that he
had heard one night in Hamley, that last night of all, flashed into his
mind--the words of old Luke Claridge's prayer, "And if a viper fasten on
his hand, O Lord--"

Suddenly he paused. That scene in the old Meetinghouse swam before his
eyes, got into his brain. He remembered the words of his own prayer,
and how he had then retreated upon the Power that gave him power, for a
draught of the one true tincture which braced the heart to throw itself
upon the spears of trial. Now the trial had come, and that which was
in him as deep as being, the habit of youth, the mother-fibre and
predisposition, responded to the draught he had drunk then. As a body
freed from the quivering, unrelenting grasp of an electric battery
subsides into a cool quiet, so, through his veins seemed to pass an
ether which stilled the tumult, the dark desire to drink the potion in
his hand, and escape into that irresponsible, artificial world, where he
had before loosened his hold on activity.

The phial slipped from his fingers to the floor. He sank upon the side
of the bed, and, placing his hands on his knees, he whispered a few
broken words that none on earth was meant to hear. Then he passed into
a strange and moveless quiet of mind and body. Many a time in days gone
by--far-off days--had he sat as he was doing now, feeling his mind pass
into a soft, comforting quiet, absorbed in a sensation of existence,
as it were between waking and sleeping, where doors opened to new
experience and understanding, where the mind seemed to loose itself from
the bonds of human necessity and find a freer air.

Now, as he sat as still as the stone in the walls around him, he was
conscious of a vision forming itself before his eyes. At first it was
indefinite, vague, without clear form, but at last it became a room
dimly outlined, delicately veiled, as it were. Then it seemed, not that
the mist cleared, but that his eyes became stronger, and saw through the
delicate haze; and now the room became wholly, concretely visible.

It was the room in which he had said good-bye to Hylda. As he gazed like
one entranced, he saw a figure rise from a couch, pale, agitated, and
beautiful, and come forward, as it were, towards him. But suddenly the
mist closed in again upon the scene, a depth of darkness passed his
eyes, and he heard a voice say: "Speak--speak to m