ill. Perhaps it was something Orson Vane gave me at supper that night, I

don't remember--"

"At supper? Vane?" The Professor leaped at the words.

"Yes. I said so, didn't I? I had supper in his rooms, and then--"

But Vanlief was gone. He had no time for the amenities now. His age seemed to leave him as his purpose warmed, and his goal neared. All the fine military bearing came out again. The people who traveled with him that day took him for nothing less than a distinguished General.

At the end of the day he reached Vane's town house. Nevins was all alone there; all the other servants were on the _Beaurivage_. The man looked worn and aged. He trembled visibly when he walked; his nerves were gone, and he had the taint of spirits on him.

"Mr. Vanlief, sir," he whined, "it'll be the death of me, will this place. First he buys a yacht, sir, like I buy a 'at, if you please; and now I'm to sell the furniture and all the antics. These antics, sir, as the master 'as collected all over the world, sir. It goes to me 'eart."

Vanlief, even in his desperate mood, could not keep his smile back. "Sell the antiques, eh? Well, they'll fetch plenty, I've no doubt. But if I were you I wouldn't hurry; Mr. Vane may change his mind, you know."

"Ah," nodded Nevins, brightening, "that's true, sir. You're right; I'll wait the least bit. It's never too soon to do what you don't want to, eh, sir? And I gives you my word, as a man that's 'ad places with the nobility, sir, that the last year's been a sad drain on me system. What with swearing, sir, and letters I wouldn't read to my father confessor, sir, Mr. Vane's simply not the man he was at all. Of course, if he says to sell the furniture, out it goes! But, like as not, he'll come in here some line day and ask where I've got all his trappings. And then I'll show him his own letter, and he'll say he never wrote it. Oh, it's a bad life I've led of late, sir. Never knowing when I could call my soul my own."

The phrase struck the Professor with a sort of chill. It was true; if his discovery went forth upon the world, no man would, in very truth, know when he could call his soul his own. It would be at the mercy of every poacher. But he could not, just now, afford reflections of such wide scope; there was a nearer, more immediate duty.

"Nevins," he said, "I came about that mirror of mine."

"Yes, sir. I'm glad of that, sir; uncommon glad. You'll betaking it away, sir? It's bad luck I've 'ad since that bit of plate come in the house."

"You're right. I mean to take it away. But only for a time. Seeing Mr. Vane's thinking of selling up, perhaps it's just as well if I have this out of the way for a time, eh? Might avoid any confusion. I set store by that mirror, Nevins; I'd not like it sold by mistake."

"Well, sir, if you sets more store by it than the master, I'd like to see it done, sir. The master's made me life a burden about that there glass. I've 'ad to watch it like a cat watches a mouse. I don't know now whether I'd rightly let you take it or not." He scratched his head, and looked in some quandary.

"Nonsense, Nevins. You know it's mine as well as you know your own name. Didn't you fetch it over from my house in the first place, and didn't you pack it and wrap it under my very eyes?"

"True, sir; I did. My memory's a bit shaky, sir, these days. You may do as you like with your own, I'll never dispute that. But Mr. Vane's orders was mighty strict about the plaguey thing. I wish I may never see it again. It's been, 'Nevins, let nobody disturb the new mirror!' and 'Nevins, did anyone touch the new mirror while I was gone?' and 'Nevins, was the window open near the new mirror?' until I fair feel sick at the sight of it."

"No doubt," said the professor, impatiently. "Then you'll oblige me by wrapping it up for shipping purposes as soon as ever you can. I'm going to take it away with me at once. I suppose there's no chance of Mr. Vane dropping in here before I bring the glass back, but, if he does, tell him you acted under my orders."

"A good riddance," muttered Nevins, losing no time over his task of covering and securing the mirror. "I'll pray it never comes this way again," he remarked.

The professor, after seeing that all danger of injury to the mirror's exposed parts was over, walked nervously up and down the rooms. He would have to carry his plan through with force of arms, with sheer impertinence and energy of purpose. It was an interference in two lives that he had in view. Had he any right to that? But was he not, after all, to blame for the fact of the curious transfusion of soul that had left one man a mental wreck, and stimulated the other's forces to a course of life out of all character with the strivings of his real soul? If he had not tempted Orson Vane to these experiments, Arthur Wantage would never be drooping in the shadow of collapse, and in danger of losing his proper place in the roll of prosperity. Vanlief shuddered at thought of what an unscrupulous man might not do with this discovery of his; what lives might be ruined, what successes built on fraud and theft? Fraud and theft? Those words were foul enough in the material things of life; but how much more horrid would they be when they covered the spiritual realm. To steal a purse, in the old dramatic phrase, was a petty thing; but to steal a soul--Professor Vanlief found himself launched into a whirlpool of doubt and confusion.

He had opened a new, vast region of mental science. He had enabled one man to pass the wall with which nature had hedged the unforeseen forces of humanity. Was he to learn that, in opening this new avenue of psychic activity, he had gone counter to the eternal Scheme of Things, and let in no divine light, but rather the fierce glare of diabolism?

His thoughts traversed argument upon argument while Nevins completed his work. He heard the man's voice, finally, with an actual relief, a gladness at being recalled to the daring and doing that lay before him.

When the Professor was gone, a wagon bearing away the precious mirror, Nevins poured himself out a notably stiff glass of Five-Star.

"Here's hoping," he toasted the silent room, "the silly thing gets smashed into everlasting smithereens!"

And he drowned any fears he might have had to the contrary. This particular species of time-killing was now a daily matter with Nevins; the incessant strain upon his nerves of some months past had finally brought him to the pitch where he had only one haven of refuge left.

The Professor sped over the miles to Framley Lodge. He took little thought about meals or sleep. The excitement was marking him deeply; but he paid no heed to, or was unaware of, that. Arrived at the Lodge a campaign of bribery and corruption began. Servant after servant had to be suborned. Nothing but the well-known fame and name of Augustus Vanlief enabled him, even with his desperate expenditures of tips, to avert the suspicion that he had some deadly, some covertly inimical end in view. One does not, at this age of the world, burst into another man's house and order that man's servants about, without coming under suspicion, to put it mildly. Fortunately Vanlief encountered, just as his plot seemed shattering against the rigor of the household arrangements, the doctor who was in attendance on Wantage. The man happened to be on the staff of the University where Vanlief held a chair. He held the older man in the greatest respect; he listened to his rapid talk with all the patience in the world. He looked astonished, even uncomprehending, but he shook his shoulders up and down a few times with complaisance. "There seems no possible harm," he assented.

"Don't ask me to believe in the curative possibilities, Professor; but--there can be no harm, that I see. He is not to be unduly excited. A mirror, you say? You don't think vanity can send a man from illness to health, do you? Not even an actor can be as vain as that, surely. However, I shall tell the attendants to see that the thing is done as quietly as possible. I trust you, you see, to let nothing detrimental happen. I have to get over to the Port of Pines. I shall give the orders. Goodbye. I wish I could see the result of your little--h'm, notion--but I dare say to-morrow will be soon enough."

And he smiled the somewhat condescending smile of the successful practitioner who fancies he is addressing a campaigner whose usefulness is passing.

The setting up of the professor's mirror, so as to face Wantage's sickbed, took no little time, no little care, no little exertion. When it was in place, the professor tiptoed to the actor's side.

"Well," queried Wantage, "what is it? Medicine? Lord, I thought I'd taken all there was in the world. Where is it?"

"No," said the professor, "not medicine. I am going to ask you to look quite hard at that curtain by the foot of the bed for a moment. I have something I think may interest you and--"

As the actor's eyes, in mere physical obedience to the other's suggestion, took the desired direction, Vanlief tugged at a cord that rolled the curtain aside, revealing the mirror, which gave Wantage back the somewhat haggard apparition of himself.

A few seconds went by in silence. Then Wantage frowned sharply.

"Gad," he exclaimed, vigorously and petulantly, "what a beastly bad bit of make-up!"

The voice was the voice of the man whom the town had a thousand times applauded as "The King of the Dandies."

An exceedingly bad quarter of an hour followed for Vanlief. Wantage, now in full possession of all his mental faculties, abused the Professor up hill and down dale. What was he doing there? What business had that mirror there? What good was a covered-up mirror? Where were the servants? The doctor had given orders? The doctor was a fool. Only the mere physical infirmity consequent upon being bedridden for so long prevented Wantage from becoming violent in his rage. Vanlief, sharp as was his sense of relief at the success of his venture, was yet more relieved when his bribes finally got his mirror and himself out of the Lodge. The incident had its humors, but he was too tired, too enervated, to enjoy them. The very moment of Wantage's recovery of his soul had its note of ironic comedy; the succeeding vituperation from the restored actor; Vanlief's own meekness; the marvel and rapacity of the servants--all these were abrim with chances for merriment. But Vanlief found himself, for, perhaps, the first time in his life, too old to enjoy the happy interpretations of life. Into all his rejoicings over the outcome of this affair there crept the constant doubts, the ceaseless questionings, as to whether he had discovered a mine of wisdom and benefit, or a mere addition to man's chances for evil.

His return journey, his delivery of the mirror into Nevins' unwilling care, were accomplished by him in a species of daze.

He had hardly counted upon the danger of his discovery. Was he still young enough to contend with them?

Nevins almost flung the mirror to its accustomed place. He unwrapped it spitefully. When he left the room, the curtain of the glass was flapping in the wind. Nevins heard the sound quite distinctly; he went to the sideboard and poured out a brimming potion.

"I 'opes the wind'll play the Old 'Arry with it," he smiled to himself. He smiled often that night; he went to bed smiling. His was the cheerful mode of intoxication.

Augustus Vanlief reached the cottage in the hills a sheer wreck. He had left it a hale figure of a man who had ever kept himself keyed up to the best; now he was old, shaking, trembling in nerves and muscles.

Jeannette rushed toward him and put her arms around him. She looked her loving, silent wonder into his weary eyes.

"Sleep, dear, sleep," said this old, tired man of science, "first let me sleep."