“Oh,” said Lefevre, immediately interested, “he may be of the same family, but I don’t know anything of his relations.  Who was the man, may I ask, that you knew?”

“Well,” said the old gentleman, settling down to a story, which Lefevre was sure would be full of interest and contemporary allusion, for the old physician had in his time seen many men and many things—­“it is a romantic story in its way.”

He was on the point of beginning it when dinner was announced.

“I should like to hear the story when we return to the drawing-room,” said Lefevre.

Over dinner, Lefevre was beset with inquiries about his mysterious case:—­Was the young man better?  Had he been very ill?  Was he handsome?  What had the foreign-looking stranger done to him? and for what purpose had he done it?  These questions were mostly ignorant and thoughtless, and Lefevre either parried them or answered them with great reserve.  When the ladies retired from table, however, more particular and curious queries were pressed upon him as to the real character of the outrage upon the young man.  He replied that he had not yet discovered, though he believed he was getting “warm.”

“Is it fair,” said Julius, “to ask you in what direction you are looking for an explanation or revelation?”

“Oh, quite fair,” said Lefevre, welcoming the question.  “To put it in a word, I look to electricity,—­animal electricity.  I have been for some time working round, and I hope gradually getting nearer, a scientific secret of enormous—­of transcendent value.  Can you conceive, Julius, of a universal principle in Nature being got so under control as to form a universal basis of cure?”

“Can I conceive?” said Julius.  “And is that electricity too?”

“I hope to find it is.”

“Oh, how slow!” exclaimed Julius,—­“oh, how slow you professional scientific men become!  You begin to run on tram-lines, and you can’t get off them!  Why fix yourself to call this principle you’re seeking for ‘electricity’?  It will probably restrict your inquiry, and hamper you in several ways.  I would declare to every scientific man, ’Unless you become as a little child or a poet, you will discover no great truth!’ Setting aside your bias towards what you call ‘electricity,’ you are really hoping to discover something that was discovered or divined thousands of years ago!  Some have called it ’od’—­an ’imponderable fluid’—­as you know; you and others wish to call it ‘electricity.’  I prefer to call it ’the spirit of life,’—­a name simple, dignified, and expressive!”

“It has the disadvantage of being poetic,” said Dr Rippon, with grave irony; “and doctors don’t like poetry mixed up with their science.”

“It is poetic,” admitted Julius, regarding the old doctor with interest, “and therefore it is intelligible.  The spirit of life is electric and elective, and it is ‘imponderable:’  it can neither be weighed nor measured!  It flows and thrills in the nerves of men and women, animals and plants, throughout the whole of Nature!  It connects the whole round of the Cosmos by one glowing, teasing, agonising principle of being, and makes us and beasts and trees and flowers all kindred!”