for nearly a month."

"You love science, then?"

"Yes; like every thing else, for diversion."

"It was different with him," quavered the old man, pointing unsteadily
to the head-stone. "Science grew to be his one passion, and many
discoveries rewarded him for his devotion. He was groping on the track
of a far greater achievement when he died."

"May I ask what it was?" said Ronald, now fairly interested.

"The creation and isolation of the principle of Life!"

This was too much for Ronald Wyde; down dived his restless hands into
his trowsers' pockets again, and the groeschen rattled as merrily as
before.

"I have made quite a study of biology, and all that sort of thing,"
said he; "and, although a good deal of a skeptic, and inclined to
follow Huxley, I can't bring myself to conceive of life without
organism. Such theorizing is, to my mind, on a par with the illogical
search for the philosopher's stone and a perpetual motor."

The old man's eyes sparkled as he turned full upon Ronald.

"You dismiss the subject very airily, my young friend," he cried; "but
let me tell you that I--I, whom you see here--have grappled with such
problems through a weary century, and have conquered one of them."

"And that one is--"

"The one that conquered Plattner!"

"Do I understand you to claim that you have discovered the
life-principle?"

"Yes."

"Will you permit an utter stranger to inquire what is its nature?"

"Certainly. It is twofold. The ultimate principle of life is carbon;
the cause of its combination with water, or rather with the two
gaseous elements of water, and the development of organized existence
therefrom, is electricity."

Ronald Wyde shrugged his broad shoulders a little, and absently
replied,

"All I can say, mein Herr, is, that you've got the bulge on me."

"I beg your pardon--"

"Excuse me; I unconsciously translated an Americanism. I mean that I
don't quite understand you."

"Which means that you do not believe me. It is but natural at your
age, when one doubts as if by instinct. Would you be convinced?"

"Nothing would please me better."

With the same painful effort as before, the old man straightened
himself and made a piercing clairvoyant examination into and through
Ronald Wyde's eyes, as if reading the brain beyond them.

"I think I can trust you," he mumbled at last. "Come with me."

Leaning on the young girl's arm, the old philosopher faltered through
the cemetery and into t