He was soon in his laboratory and at work, the reaction imparting a great impulse to his energy. He set to work with unwonted vigor and determination. Chemical investigation has its good and evil days,—its periods when all goes well, experiments succeed, tests answer, and results respond to what was looked for; and others when disturbing causes intervene, gases escape, and retorts smash. This was one of the former; and the subtle essence long sought after by Layton, so eagerly desired, and half despaired of, seemed at last almost within reach. A certain salt, an ingredient very difficult of preparation, was, however, wanting to his further progress, and it was necessary that he should provide himself with it ere he advanced any further. To obtain this without any adulterating admixture and in all purity was essential to success; and he determined to set out immediately for Dublin, where he could himself assist in its preparation.
“What good luck it was, Grace,” said he, as he entered the room where she sat awaiting dinner for him,—“what good luck that the boy should have sent us this money! I must go up to Dublin to-morrow, and without it I must have given up the journey.”
“To Dublin!” said she, in a half-frightened voice, for she dreaded—not without reason—the temptations he would be exposed to when accidentally lifted above his usual poverty.
“Ay, girl; I want a certain 'cyanuret' of which you have never heard, nor can help me to any knowledge of, but which a Dublin chemist that I know of will assist me to procure; and with this salt I purpose to make myself a name and reputation that even Mr. Ogden will not dare to dispute. I shall, I hope, have discovered what will render disease painless, and deprive operation of all its old terrors. If my calculations be just, a new era will dawn upon medical science, and the physician come to the sick man as a true comforter. My discovery, too, is no empyric accident for which I can give no reason, nor assign no cause, but the result of patient investigation, based upon true knowledge. My appeal will be to the men of science, not to popular judgments. I ask no favor; I seek no patronage. Herbert Layton would be little likely to find either; but we shall see if the name will not soar above both favor and patronage, and rank with the great discoverers, or, better again, with the great benefactors of mankind.”
Vainglorious and presumptuous as this speech was,—uttered, too, in a tone boastful as the words themselves,—it was the mood which Layton's wife loved to see him indulge. If for nothing else than it was the reverse of the sardonic and bitter raillery he often practised,—a spirit of scoff in which he inveighed against the world and himself,—it possessed for her an indescribable charm. It represented her husband, besides, in what she loved to think his true character,—that of a noble, enthusiastic man, eagerly bent upon benefiting his fellows. To her thinking, there was nothing of vanity,—no overweening conceit in all these foreshadowings of future fame; nay, if anything, he understated the claims he would establish upon the world's gratitude.
With what eager delight, then, did she listen! how enchanting were the rich tones of his voice as he thus declaimed!
“How it cheers my heart, Herbert, when I hear you speak thus! how bright everything looks when you throw such sunlight around you!”
“'Is this the debauchee,—is this the fellow we have been reading of in the reports from Scotland Yard? Methinks I hear them whispering to each other. Ay, and that haughty University, ashamed of its old injustice, will stoop to share the lustre of the man it once expelled.”
“Oh, think of the other and the better part of your triumph!” cried she, eagerly.
“The best part of all will be the vengeance on those who have wronged me. What will these calumniators say when it is a nation does homage to my success?”