thod of detecting these faults. Two bank notes,
one authentic, the other a forgery, were placed side by side in a
stereoscope of strong magnifying power, when the faults were at once
detected. Helmholtz's experiment probably seemed fantastic to the forger
condemned by a stereoscope. Oh, well, to-day ought not a like experiment
on the retina of a dead man's eye give a like result?

"Instruments have been highly perfected since the time when Dr. Bourion
made his experiments, and if the law of human physiology has not changed
the seekers of invisible causes must have rapidly advanced in their
mysterious pursuits. Who knows whether, at the instant of the last
agony, that the dying person does not put all the intensity of life
into the retina, giving a hundredfold power to that last supreme look?"

At this point of his reflections Bernardet experienced some hesitation.
While he was not thoroughly acquainted with physiology and philosophy,
yet he had seen so much, so many things; had known so many strange
occurrences, and had studied many men. He knew--for he had closely
questioned wretches who had been saved from drowning at the very last
possible moment, some of whom had attempted suicide, others who had been
almost drowned through accident, and each one had told him that his
whole life, from his earliest recollection, had flashed through his mind
in the instant of mortal agony. Yes, a whole lifetime in one instant of
cerebral excitement!

Had savants been able to solve this wonderful mystery? The _resume_ of
an existence in one vibration! Was it possible? Yet--Bernardet still
used the word.

And why, in an analogous sensation, could not the look of a dying man be
seized in an intensity lasting an instant, as memory brought in a single
flash so many diverse remembrances?

"I know, since it is the imagination, and that the dead cannot see,
while the image on the retina is a fact, a fact contradicted by wiser
men than I." Bernardet thought on these mysteries until his head began
to ache.

"I shall make myself ill over it," he thought. "And there is something
to be done."

Then in his dusty little room, his brain overexcited, he became enthused
with one idea. His surroundings fell away from him, he saw
nothing--everything disappeared--the books, the papers, the walls, the
visible objects, as did also the objections, the denials, the
demonstrative impossibilities. And absolute conviction seized him to the
exclusion of