pposite, negative truth. It is very odd, isn't it? But
there it is for everybody to read. And the human mind, of course, true
to its beliefs, clings to the second chapter as the reality. Isn't it
strange?"

Meantime, Carmen's attention had been attracted to a large microscope
that stood on the table near her. Going to it, she peeped curiously
down into the tube. "Well, what have you here?" she inquired.

"Germs," he said mechanically.

"Germs! What funny, twisted things! Well," she suddenly asked, "have
you got the fear germ here?"

He broke into a laugh. But when the girl looked up, her face was quite
serious.

"You do not know it, Doctor, for you are a practical man, but you
haven't anything but fear germs under this glass," she said in a low
voice.

"Why, those are germs of typhoid and tuberculosis!" he exclaimed.

"And manifestations, externalizations, of the fear germ itself, which
is mental," she added. "These things don't cause disease," she went
on, pointing to the slide. "But the thoughts which they manifest do.
Do you scientists know why people die, Doctor?"

"No," he admitted seriously. "We really do not know why people die."

"Then I'll tell you," she said. "_It's because they don't know enough
to live._ This poor Doctor Bolton died because he didn't know that God
was life. He committed sickness, and then paid the penalty, death. He
sinned by believing that there were other powers than God, by
believing that life and thought were in matter. And so he paid the
wages of sin, death. He simply missed the mark, that's all."

She turned and perched herself upon the table. "You haven't asked me
to sit down," she commented brightly. "But, if you don't mind, I
will."

"I--I beg your pardon!" the doctor exclaimed, coloring, and hastily
setting out a chair. "I really was so interested in what you were
saying that I forgot my manners."

"No," she said, shaking her head as she declined the proffered chair,
"I'll sit here, so's I can look straight into your eyes. You go ahead
and cut up poor Yorick, and I'll talk."

The doctor laughed again. "You are much more interesting," he
returned, "than poor Bolton, dead or alive. In fact, he really was
quite a bore. But you are like a sparkling mountain rill, even if you
do give me a severe classification."

"Well," she replied, "then you are honestly more interested in life
than in death, are you?"

"Why, most assuredly!" he said.

"So am I, much! Death is _s