it. Instinctively the circle narrowed,
and Phadrig noting this, said:

"Pray, come as close as you like, ladies and gentlemen, as long as you
do not pass my guardians, for they have undertaken that you shall not be
deceived."

The result was that a smaller circle was formed round the square, at the
angles of which stood Merrill and the three men of science. Phadrig
stood at one side facing the east. Then he spread his hands out above
the rose, and said slowly:

"Earth feeds, sun warms, and air refreshes: wherefore grow, rose, that
the power of the Greater Knowledge may be manifested, and that those who
believed not before may now see and believe."

He raised his hands with a spreading movement and, to the utter
amazement of every one except Franklin Marmion, who now saw that this
man certainly had approached to within measurable distance of the
borderland which he had himself so lately crossed--wherefore in his eyes
there was nothing at all marvellous in anything he had done--the leaves
on the sprig grew rapidly out into branches as the main stem increased
in height and thickness, red and white buds appeared under the leaves
and swelled out into full blooms with a rapidity that would have been
quite incredible if a hundred keen eyes had not been watching the marvel
so closely; and within ten minutes a fine rose-bush, some three feet
high, loaded with red and white and creamy blossoms, stood where Merrill
had planted the sprig.

After the first gasps of astonishment there arose quite a chorus of
requests from the younger members of Phadrig's audience for a rose to
keep in memory of the marvel they had seen; but he shook his head, and
said with a smile of deprecation:

"I regret that it is not possible for me to grant what you ask. For your
own sakes I cannot do it. If I gave you those roses they would never
fade, and it might be that those who possessed them would never die. Far
be it from me to curse you with such a terrible gift as immortality on
earth."

The gravely, almost sadly spoken words fell upon his hearer's ears like
so many snowflakes. Instinctively they shrank back from the beautiful
bush as though it had been the fabled Upas. They had begun to fear now
for the first time. But there was one among them, a young fellow of
twenty-two, named Martin Caine, who was already known as one of the most
daring and far-sighted of the rising generation of chemical
investigators, to whom the prospect of an endless