constitution—"

But here Laurence roused himself to protest.

"Matter returns to matter, sir, granted," he said. "Then why not spirit to spirit? Are you not assuming a waste which you cannot prove? And if spirit does return to spirit, what better than that, after all, can we ask?"

"Spirit?" Mr. Rivers retorted, with a fine inflection of irony, and momentary brightening of those half-closed eyes. "You, my dear Laurence, employ words glibly enough which I hesitate to pronounce! Matter I know. It is evident to the senses. Its actual existence—Berkeley, certain Oriental and other philosophers notwithstanding—is, within certain limits, susceptible of proof. And intellect I know. Its existence, though on other lines, is equally susceptible of proof. Its action can be registered and ratified. But spirit?—I will thank you to inform me—what is spirit?"

The young man bowed himself together, resting his elbows on his knees. He smiled with a half-humorous air of apology.

"That I cannot tell you, sir," he said. "I'm better at conviction than at explanation, I'm afraid. I only know—not with my reason, but with my heart—that spirit is, and has been, and must be everlastingly."

"And its mode of expression, its mode of self-revelation?" the other inquired drily.

Laurence straightened himself up, laughing a little.

"One way, the old why—childish, perhaps, yet really rather charming. In and by love, sir—only so, by love."

Tremulously Mr. Rivers drew the rich, sable cape closer about him, though the heat of the room was intense.

"I become very abject," he said at last. "I procrastinate and risk letting slip the opportunity still permitted me. For in my abjection, I own I clutch at straws, miserably anxious for support. I am ashamed that any other human being should witness the mental prostration to which physical illness has reduced me. But time presses, and compels me to delay no longer in confessing my object in calling you to me to-night. Tell me, Laurence, have you investigated those abnormal phenomena of which we spoke, and have your investigations yielded any result?"

The question took the listener somewhat by surprise, and he hesitated before replying. The whole 

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