nake because the reptile had been
given life. According to your own showing, the girl was in an
intolerable position. She enters upon her new life with every prospect
of happiness. Believe me, Powers, the hand which struck away the bridge
between her past and future was the hand of a benefactor."

"I suppose you must be right," Powers murmured.

"Right! It is hopelessly obvious," Trowse answered. "If this hesitation
is anything more than a passing mood with you, I shall be amazed. You
probably saved the girl from moral shipwreck--you have transported her
into a life which she could certainly never have reached by any other
means!"

In his tone and in his face were signs of a rare and intense enthusiasm.
The eyes of the two men met. Trowse continued, with a gesture stiff, but
almost dramatic:

"Man, it is wonderful! I could kill you as you stand there, for envy. It
is among the possibilities that you, a dilettante, a dabbler, may solve
the secret of all the ages past and to come. It may be that she will
sing to you the songs that Pocahontas sang to the great god of the
Indians or you may wake in the night to hear the wail of one of those
daughters of Judah led captive into Egypt. Perhaps she was a priestess
in the time-forgotten cities of Africa, gone before our history crept
into being, swept who knows where off the face of the earth!"

Powers was shaking with excitement. This sudden eloquence from the one
man on earth whose cold self-restraint had become a byword moved him
strangely.

"Well," he said, "for good or for evil, the thing must go through as it
has been arranged. I am glad that you are interested, Trowse. It may be
that I shall need your help."

"Likely enough," Trowse answered shortly. "It seems to me that you have
let go some of the old ideas. Believe me, they were the safest. The man
who has work to do in the world has no greater enemy than this shifting
sentimentalism. May I come and see your patient to-morrow?"

"You may see her as often as you like," Powers answered, "so long as you
let me know beforehand that you are coming."

"I thank you," Trowse answered, with a cold smile. "You need have no
fear that I shall attempt any single-handed experiments. Only, if you
want my advice, don't give her over to society, no matter what your
promise was. Why on earth don't you keep her quietly to yourself here
instead of sending her to her mother? What do you want to go publishing
her to the world at a