"Dead," repeated the other, as though he did not understand. "They are the children of the laws," he stated, rather than asked. "Are the laws kind and faithful? They never tire?"
Fillery explained with one-half of his nature, and still as to a child. The other half of him lay under firm restraint according to his promise. He outlined in general terms man's knowledge of the stars. "The laws never tire," he said.
"But the stars end! They burn out, stop, and die! You said so."
The other replied with something judicious and cautious about time and its immense duration. But he was startled.
"And those who attend to the laws," came then the words that startled him, "who keeps them working so that they do not tire?"
It was something in the tone of voice perhaps that, once again, produced in his listener the extraordinary sudden feeling that Humanity was, after all, but an insignificant, a microscopic detail in the Universe; that it was, say, a mere ant-heap in the colossal jungle crowded with other minuter as well as immenser life of every sort and kind, and, moreover, that "N. H." was aware of this "other life," or at least of some vast section of it, and had been, if he were not still, associated with it. The two letters by which he was designated acquired a deeper meaning than before.
A rich glow came into the young face, and into the eyes, growing ever darker, a look of burning; the skin had the effect of radiating; the breathing became of a sudden deep and rhythmical. The whole figure seemed to grow larger, expanding as though it extended already and half filled the room. Into the atmosphere about it poured, as though heat and light rushed through it, a strange effect of power.
"You'd like to visit them, perhaps—wouldn't you?" asked Fillery gently.
"I feel——" began the other, then stopped short.
"You feel it would interest you," the doctor helped—then saw his mistake.