were with arms stretched forth, and smiling lips, overpowered all.  His fancies made him wander, as he had wandered long ago, from the fields into the wood, tracking a little path between the shining undergrowth of beech-trees; and the trickle of water dropping from the limestone rock sounded as a clear melody in the dream.  Thoughts began to go astray and to mingle with other thoughts; the beech alley was transformed to a path between ilex-trees, and here and there a vine climbed from bough to bough, and sent up waving tendrils and drooped with purple grapes, and the sparse grey-green leaves of a wild olive-tree stood out against the dark shadows of the ilex.  Clarke, in the deep folds of dream, was conscious that the path from his father’s house had led him into an undiscovered country, and he was wondering at the strangeness of it all, when suddenly, in place of the hum and murmur of the summer, an infinite silence seemed to fall on all things, and the wood was hushed, and for a moment in time he stood face to face there with a presence, that was neither man nor beast, neither the living nor the dead, but all things mingled, the form of all things but devoid of all form.  And in that moment, the sacrament of body and soul was dissolved, and a voice seemed to cry “Let us go hence,” and then the darkness of darkness beyond the stars, the darkness of everlasting.

When Clarke woke up with a start he saw Raymond pouring a few drops of some oily fluid into a green phial, which he stoppered tightly.

“You have been dozing,” he said; “the journey must have tired you out.  It is done now.  I am going to fetch Mary; I shall be back in ten minutes.”

Clarke lay back in his chair and wondered.  It seemed as if he had but passed from one dream into another.  He half expected to see the walls of the laboratory melt and disappear, and to awake in London, shuddering at his own sleeping fancies.  But at last the door opened, and the doctor returned, and behind him came a girl of about seventeen, dressed all in white.  She was so beautiful that Clarke did not wonder at what the doctor had written to him.  She was blushing now over face and neck and arms, but Raymond seemed unmoved.

“Mary,” he said, “the time has come.  You are quite free.  Are you willing to trust yourself to me entirely?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Do you hear that, Clarke?  You are my witness.  Here is the chair, Mary.  It is quite easy.  Just sit in it and lean back.  Are you ready?”

“Yes, dear, quite ready.  Give me a kiss before you begin.”

The doctor stooped and kissed her mouth, kindly enough.  “Now shut your eyes,” he said.  The girl closed her eyelids, as if she were tired, and longed for sleep, and Raymond placed the green phial to her nostrils.  Her face grew white, whiter than her dress; she struggled faintly, and then with the feeling of submission strong within her, crossed her arms upon her breast as a little child about to