to compass some
explanation.

He walked at once, on entering the ward, to the bedside of his puzzling
patient, who still lay limp as a dish-clout and drowsy as a sloth. He
tested--as he had done almost daily--his nervous and respiratory powers
with the exact instruments adapted for the purpose, and then, still
unenlightened, he questioned him closely about his sensations. The young
officer answered him with tolerable intelligence.

"I feel," he ended with saying, "as if all my energy had
evaporated,--and I used to have no end,--just as a spirit evaporates if
it is left open to the air."

The saying struck Lefevre mightily. "Energy" stood then to Lefevre as an
almost convertible term for "electricity," and his successful
experiments with electricity had opened up to him a vast field of
conjecture, into which, on the smallest inflaming hint, he was wont to
make an excursion. Such a hint was the saying of the young officer now,
and, as he walked away, he found himself, as it were, knocking at the
door of a great discovery. But the door did not open on that summons,
and he resolved straightway to discuss the subject with Julius Courtney,
who, though an amateur, had about as complete a knowledge of it as
himself, and who could bring to bear, he believed, a finer intelligence.

He first sought Julius at the Hyacinth Club, where he frequently spent
the afternoon. Failing to find him there, he inquired for him at his
chambers in the Albany. Hearing nothing of him there, and the ardour of
his quest having cooled a little, he stepped out across the way to his
own home in Savile Row.

There he found a note from his mother, with a touch of mystery in its
wording. She said she wanted very much to have a serious conversation
with him; she had been expecting for days to see him, and she begged him
to go that evening to dinner if he could. "Julius," said she, "will be
here, and one or two others."

The mention of Julius as a visitor at his mother's house reminded him of
his promise to that lady to find out how the young man was connected:
engrossed as he had been with his strange case, he had almost forgotten
the promise, and he had done nothing to fulfil it but tap ineffectually
for admission to his friend's confidence. He therefore considered with
some anxiety what he should do, for Lady Lefevre could on occasion be
exacting and severe with her son. He concluded nothing could be done
before dinner, but he went prepared to be q