The purple bell-flower.'

But suddenly, in the privacy of his laboratory, a single fact arises
from the test-tube in his trembling hand and confronts him! His
brain reels; the glass torment falls upon the floor, and shatters
into countless pieces, but he is not conscious of it, for he feels
it thrust through his heart. When he recovers from the first shock,
he can only ejaculate: 'Is it possible?' After a little he is able
to reason. 'I was fatigued,' he says; 'perhaps my senses erred. I
can repeat the experiment again, and be sure. But if it overthrow
those conclusions for which I have given my life?' he gasps. 'My
generalisation is firmly established in the minds of all--all but
myself--no one will ever chance upon this particular experiment,
and it may not disprove my theory after all; better, much better,
that the floor there keep the secret of it all both from me and from
others!' But even as he says this to himself he has taken a new
tube from the rack and crawled--ten years older for that last ten
minutes--to his chemical case. The life-long habit of truth is so
strong in him that self-interest cannot submerge it. He repeats the
experiment, and confirms his fears. The battle between his life and
a few drops of liquid in a test-tube has been mercilessly fought,
and he has lost! The elasticity of the man is gone forever, and the
only indication the world ever receives of this terrible conflict
between a human soul and its destiny is some half a dozen lines in
Nature, giving the experiment and stating that it utterly refutes
its author's previous conclusions. Half a dozen lines--the epitaph
of a dead, though unburied, life!"

My companion paused there, but I found myself unable to reply. He
had spoken with such intensity, such dramatic fervour, that I was