h, as through a suite of lesser apartments
leading to the throne-room, we were to approach the act that should
crown them all.

For the first time since he had been my pupil, I found Guy nervous,
_maladroit_. He turned pale at the sight of blood. The struggling of a
pigeon, or the yelp of a dog, seemed to make him sick, and a hundred
times he laid down his scalpel as if unable to proceed. He was like a
neophyte, and a prey to the sentimental horrors of which, up to this
time, his absorbed intellect had been quite unconscious. I trembled.
If his nerve should fail him when it became _my_ turn, and the whole
costly experiment be thrown away through some awkwardness on his part!
I was furious at the very idea, and told him so.

"I will haunt you forever if you fail," I said, savagely.

"You will in any case," answered Guy, sighing heavily.

But at my instances, he tried to rouse himself from this inexplicable
languor, and to drill hand and eye to exquisite precision. I watched
him severely. I refused to pardon the least blunder. I trained him for
this last trial, as men train horses for the winning race. Guy was
really an able physiologist, and his skill only needed finishing
touches to be as effective as was possible in the actual condition of
science. After two or three weeks I was satisfied, and bade him
prepare the next day to begin the last experiment.

I shall never forget that day, the supreme moment of my life. I sat at
the windows of an inner room, waiting for Guy, and looked out over the
valley that basked in the afternoon sunshine. It was the beginning of
September--one of those perfect days at the prime of the year, when
life has reached its culmination, and pauses in the fulness of its own
content. The air, ripe and balmy, purged of the rawness of Spring and
the violent heat of Summer, was as yet untouched by the faintest
frost, and restored to such perfection as mortals might breathe after
the regeneration of the earth. The grain had been gathered in, but the
unfallen fruit still weighed down the orchards, and absorbed the
sunlight for its mellowing juices. The first press of the harvest
season was over, the second had not yet begun; for one precious moment
man and nature paused together, and surveyed the long ascent by which
the year had climbed to these high table-lands of peace--not innocent
peace, ignorant of action, but the peace of victory after conflict, of
repose after strife, of maturity entering