invalid had caught her in his arms and kissed her heartily on both
cheeks. But the happy excitement had been too much for him and with a
low groan he sank down on the edge of the bed and sobbed bitterly.

Frau Vorkel was greatly disturbed for she guessed--and it would seem with
reason--that her good master had gone out of his mind. But she presently
changed her opinion, for after he had cried unrestrainedly until he was
exhausted, Herr Ueberhell gave her a prompt proof of his sanity and
returning health. In his kindly and polite manner of former times, he
begged her to set out in the kitchen a bottle of the oldest and best
Bacharacher. There he bade her bring a second glass and invited her to
drink, and clink glasses with him because the greatest piece of good luck
had happened to him that day that it was in the power of the blessed
saints to grant to mortal man. He, the father, had discovered in Leipsic
what his son had sought in vain at all the most famous Universities of
Italy, and if he should succeed in one remaining step, the fame of the
Ueberhells, like that of the Roman Horatii, would reach to the skies.

Then he became more serious and confessed that he was very weak and
broken, and that when he had gone to bed earlier in the evening he had
felt that his last hour was not far distant. Death itself sometimes
floats 'twixt cup and lip, as has been remarked by a heathen philosopher,
and if he should be called away before he had seen Melchior again, then
must she be his messenger and tell his son that he had found that part of
the White Lion, of the white tincture of argentum potabile or potable
silver, which his letter had put him on the track of. His son would know
what he meant, and to-morrow he would write down the particulars if he
should succeed that night in finding again the substance through which he
had attained to the greatest wonder that science had achieved since the
days of Adam.