I felt as I stood here one evening; it was a summer evening, and the valley looked much as it does now; I stood here, and saw before me the unutterable, the unthinkable gulf that yawns profound between two worlds, the world of matter and the world of spirit; I saw the great empty deep stretch dim before me, and in that instant a bridge of light leapt from the earth to the unknown shore, and the abyss was spanned.  You may look in Browne Faber’s book, if you like, and you will find that to the present day men of science are unable to account for the presence, or to specify the functions of 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.’”