f a certain group of nerve-cells in the brain.
That group is, as it were, land to let, a mere waste place for fanciful
theories. I am not in the position of Browne Faber and the
specialists, I am perfectly instructed as to the possible functions of
those nerve-centers in the scheme of things. With a touch I can bring
them into play, with a touch, I say, I can set free the current, with a
touch I can complete the communication between this world of sense
and--we shall be able to finish the sentence later on. Yes, the knife
is necessary; but think what that knife will effect. It will level
utterly the solid wall of sense, and probably, for the first time since
man was made, a spirit will gaze on a spirit-world. Clarke, Mary will
see the god Pan!"

"But you remember what you wrote to me? I thought it would be
requisite that she--"

He whispered the rest into the doctor's ear.

"Not at all, not at all. That is nonsense. I assure you. Indeed, it
is better as it is; I am quite certain of that."

"Consider the matter well, Raymond. It's a great responsibility.
Something might go wrong; you would be a miserable man for the rest of
your days."

"No, I think not, even if the worst happened. As you know, I rescued
Mary from the gutter, and from almost certain starvation, when she was
a child; I think her life is mine, to use as I see fit. Come, it's
getting late; we had better go in."

Dr. Raymond led the way into the house, through the hall, and down a
long dark passage. He took a key from his pocket and opened a heavy
door, and motioned Clarke into his laboratory. It had once been a
billiard-room, and was lighted by a glass dome in the centre of the
ceiling, whence there still shone a sad grey light on the figure of the
doctor as he lit a lamp with a heavy shade and placed it on a table in
the middle of the room.

Clarke looked about him. Scarcely a foot of wall remained bare; there
were shelves all around laden with bottles and phials of all shapes and
colours, and at one end stood a little Chippendale book-case. Raymond
pointed to this.

"You see that parchment Oswald Crollius? He was one of the first to
show me the way, though I don't think he ever found it himself. That
is a strange saying of his: 'In every grain of wheat there lies hidden
the soul of a star.'"

There was not much furniture in the laboratory. The table in the
centre, a stone slab with a drain in one corner, the two armchairs on