completely upsets your point of view, and tumbles down your scheme of
life, like a stick thrust between your legs when you are running?"

"I have known," said Lefevre, "a new fact arise and upset a whole
scientific theory. That's often a good thing," he added, with a pointed
glance; "for it compels a reconstruction of the theory on a wider and
sounder basis."

"Yes," murmured Julius; "that may be. But I should think it does not
often happen that the new fact swallows up all the details that
supported your theory,--as Aaron's rod, turned into a serpent, swallowed
up the serpent-rods of the magicians of Egypt,--so that there is no
longer any theory, but only one great, glorious fact. I do admire," he
exclaimed, swerving suddenly, "the imagination of those old Greeks, with
their beautiful, half-divine personifications of the Spirits of Air and
Earth and Sea! But their imagination never conceived a goddess that
embodied them all!"

"I have often thought, Julius," said Lefevre, "that you must be some
such embodiment yourself; for you are not quite human, you know."

The doctor said that with a clear recollection of his mother's request.
He hoped that his friend would take the cue, and tell him something of
his family. Julius, however, said nothing but "Indeed." Lefevre then
tried to tempt him into confession by talking about his own father and
mother, and by relating how the French name "Lefevre" came to be
domiciled in England; but Julius ignored the temptation, and dismissed
the question in an eloquent flourish.

"What does a man want with a family and a name? They only tie him to the