impulse to his energy. He set to work with unwonted vigor and
determination. Chemical investigation has its good and evil days,--its
periods when all goes well, experiments succeed, tests answer, and
results respond to what was looked for; and others when disturbing
causes intervene, gases escape, and retorts smash. This was one of the
former; and the subtle essence long sought after by Layton, so eagerly
desired, and half despaired of, seemed at last almost within reach. A
certain salt, an ingredient very difficult of preparation, was, however,
wanting to his further progress, and it was necessary that he should
provide himself with it ere he advanced any further. To obtain this
without any adulterating admixture and in all purity was essential to
success; and he determined to set out immediately for Dublin, where he
could himself assist in its preparation.

"What good luck it was, Grace," said he, as he entered the room where
she sat awaiting dinner for him,--"what good luck that the boy should
have sent us this money! I must go up to Dublin to-morrow, and without
it I must have given up the journey."

"To Dublin!" said she, in a half-frightened voice, for she dreaded--not
without reason--the temptations he would be exposed to when accidentally
lifted above his usual poverty.

"Ay, girl; I want a certain 'cyanuret' of which you have never heard,
nor can help me to any knowledge of, but which a Dublin chemist that I
know of will assist me to procure; and with this salt I purpose to
make myself a name and reputation that even Mr. Ogden will not dare
to dispute. I shall, I hope, have discovered what will render
disease painless, and deprive operation of all its old terrors. If my
calculations be just, a new era will dawn upon medical science, and the
physician come to the sick man as a true comforter. My discovery, too,
is no empyric accident for which I can give no reason, nor assign
no cause, but the result of patient investigation, based upon true
knowledge. My appeal will be to the men of science, not to popular
judgments. I ask no favor; I seek no patronage. Herbert Layton would be
little likely to find either; but we shall see if the name will not soar
above both favor and patronage, and rank with the great discoverers, or,
better again, with the great benefactors of mankind."

Vainglorious and presumptuous as this speech was,--uttered, too, in a
tone boastful as the words themselves,--it was the mood which Layt