d if you succeed in getting any really good man to
take it up--which I doubt--he will be merciless."

"We want him to be," declared Clarke. "We glory in your defiance. Let
your scientific men come with their bands of steel, their bolts and
bars, their telephones, and their electric traps. We defy every
material test."

"You are fools--madmen," hotly answered Serviss. "You would sacrifice
this girl to a brazen scheme of self-advertising?"

Clarke was contemptuous. "That is your point of view. From our side
there is no greater glory than to be an Evangel of the New Faith. What
matters the comment of the gross and self-satisfied to us who work for
the happiness of those who mourn? The world in which _we_ live
despises the materialism of yours."

At this moment a new conception of Clarke's plan crossed Serviss's
mind. "He is deeper than I thought. He would discredit the girl in the
eyes of normal suitors, thereby assuring her to himself." Aloud he
said: "Miss Lambert's right to herself should be your first
consideration. She is something more than a trumpet for sounding your
fame."

Clarke's resounding voice had drawn Mrs. Lambert from her room, and
she now hurried down the stairway with intent to calm him.

Serviss turned to her. "Again I beg of you, Mrs. Lambert, to consider
well before you consent to this plan. Your daughter's name will be a
jest from one end of the country to the other. It doesn't matter how
sincere and earnest you are, the public will regard this challenge as
a seeking for notoriety. Your daughter is about to be flung to the
beasts." Seeing something unyielding in her eyes, he added, with such
intensity his own heart responded: "Will you stake your daughter's
reputation, her health, her reason, upon the issue of a voice in the
dark?"

"Yes, when the voice is that of her own father. He knows the future.
He will protect her. I have no fear."

There was such conviction, such immutable faith in her gentle voice,
that Serviss was confounded. When he spoke, in answer, his voice was
lower in key, with a cadence of hopeless appeal.

"How do you know these advisers are your husband and your father? You
must be very certain of them."

"I am certain. I believe in them as I believe in my own existence."
The line of her mouth lost something of its sweetness, and Serviss,
seeing this, took another tack.

"Granted these voices are genuine, they may be mistaken--rash with
zeal. You wouldn't say that the