me and thumped me on the back. "There's not a
flaw in it!" he cried. "It's magnificent. My dear fellow, death is only
a failure in human perfection. There's nothing mysterious in it.
Religion has made a ridiculous fuss about it. There's nothing more
mysterious in it than there is in a badly-oiled engine wearing out. Now
listen. I'm going to begin...."

I listened, fascinated.

CHAPTER III

THE BUTTERFLIES

Two years passed by after my return to London without special incident,
save that my black cat died. My work as a consulting physician occupied
most of my time. In the greater world beyond my consulting-room door
life went on undisturbed by any thought of the approaching upheaval,
full of the old tragedies of ambition and love and sickness. But
sometimes as I examined my patients and listened to their tales of
suffering and pain, a curious contraction of the heart would come upon
me at the thought that perhaps some day, not so very far remote, all the
endless cycle of disease and misery would cease, and a new dawn of hope
burst with blinding radiance upon weary humanity. And then a mood of
unbelief would darken my mind and I would view the creation of the
bacillus as an idle and vain dream, an illusion never to be
realized....

One evening as I sat alone before my study fire, my servant entered and
announced there was a visitor to see me.

"Show him in here," I said, thinking he was probably a late patient who
had come on urgent business.

A moment later Professor Sarakoff himself was shown in.

I rose with a cry of welcome and clasped his hand.

"My dear fellow, why didn't you let me know you were coming?" I cried.

He smiled upon me with a mysterious brightness.

"Harden," he said in a low voice, as if afraid of being heard, "I came
on a sudden impulse. I wanted to show you something. Wait a moment."

He went out into the hall and returned bearing a square box in his
hands. He laid it on the table and then carefully closed the door.

"It is the first big result of my experiments," he whispered. He opened
the box and drew out a glass case covered over with white muslin.

He stepped back from the table and looked at me triumphantly.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Lift up the muslin."

I did so. On the wooden floor of the glass case were a great number of
dark objects. At first I thought they were some kind of grub, and then
on closer inspection I saw what they were.

"Butterflies!" I exclaim