that story much better than the others. The _Primum Ens
Melissae_ at least offers a less puerile benefit than most magical
secrets.'

'Do you call the search for gold puerile?' asked Haddo, who had been
sitting for a long time in complete silence.

'I venture to call it sordid.'

'You are very superior.'

'Because I think the aims of mystical persons invariably gross or
trivial? To my plain mind, it is inane to raise the dead in order to hear
from their phantom lips nothing but commonplaces. And I really cannot see
that the alchemist who spent his life in the attempted manufacture of
gold was a more respectable object than the outside jobber of modern
civilization.'

'But if he sought for gold it was for the power it gave him, and it was
power he aimed at when he brooded night and day over dim secrets. Power
was the subject of all his dreams, but not a paltry, limited dominion
over this or that; power over the whole world, power over all created
things, power over the very elements, power over God Himself. His lust
was so vast that he could not rest till the stars in their courses were
obedient to his will.'

For once Haddo lost his enigmatic manner. It was plain now that his words
intoxicated him, and his face assumed a new, a strange, expression. A
peculiar arrogance flashed in his shining eyes.

'And what else is it that men seek in life but power? If they want
money, it is but for the power that attends it, and it is power again
that they strive for in all the knowledge they acquire. Fools and sots
aim at happiness, but men aim only at power. The magus, the sorcerer,
the alchemist, are seized with fascination of the unknown; and they
desire a greatness that is inaccessible to mankind. They think by the
science they study so patiently, but endurance and strength, by force of
will and by imagination, for these are the great weapons of the magician,
they may achieve at last a power with which they can face the God of
Heaven Himself.'

Oliver Haddo lifted his huge bulk from the low chair in which he had been
sitting. He began to walk up and down the studio. It was curious to see
this heavy man, whose seriousness was always problematical, caught up by
a curious excitement.

'You've been talking of Paracelsus,' he said. 'There is one of his
experiments which the doctor has withheld from you. You will find it
neither mean nor mercenary, but it is very terrible. I do not know
whether the account of it is true,