The gay sound of music now floated towards them from the ball-
room,--the strains of a graceful, joyous, half-commanding, half-
pleading waltz came rhythmically beating on the air like the
measured movement of wings,--and Denzil Murray, beginning to grow
restless, walked to and fro, his eyes watching every figure that
crossed and re-crossed the hall. But Dr. Dean's interest in Armand
Gervase remained intense and unabated; and approaching him, he
laid two lean fingers delicately on the white folds of the Bedouin
dress just where the heart of the man was hidden.

"'A foolish and barbaric superstition!'" he echoed slowly and
meditatively. "You do not believe in any possibility of there
being a life--or several lives--after this present death through
which we must all pass inevitably, sooner or later?"

"Not in the least! I leave such ideas to the ignorant and
uneducated. I should be unworthy of the progressive teachings of
my time if I believed such arrant nonsense."

"Death, you consider, finishes all? There is nothing further--no
mysteries beyond? ..." and Dr. Dean's eyes glittered as he
stretched forth one thin, slight hand and pointed into space with
the word "beyond," an action which gave it a curious emphasis, and
for a fleeting second left a weird impression on even the careless
mind of Gervase. But he laughed it off lightly.

"Nothing beyond? Of course not! My dear sir, why ask such a
question? Nothing can be plainer or more positive than the fact
that death, as you say, finishes all."