"Dear," he said softly, "it is not well for you to dwell upon these fancies. Try and think instead of the future—our future.
"Fancies," she repeated scornfully. "They are not fancies. They are memories."
"Call them what you will, dear," he said, "but let them lie. They belong to a dead past. It is the future which concerns us."
She drew a little closer to him. For the first time he felt his pressure upon her fingers returned.
It seemed to him as she sat there, with quivering lips, that it was indeed the weary shop-girl of the Edgware Road who was with him once more. There was a light in her eyes as of some new understanding.
A great yearning swept over Powers with the memory of that rain-swept, wind-tossed bay. All the scientific aspirations, the quiet culture, and the easy, pleasant days of sybaritical studentship which had filled his life were suddenly things of the past. His passionate love for Eleanor was predominant. He was like a man afflicted with a strange fever of unknown origin, which no physician could prescribe for, and which he himself was powerless to resist.
In his room that night he sat under his student's lamp into the small hours, writing—writing....
It was the last chance and he was going to stake his all upon it. He was appealing to the old German professor of his student days, the man who more than any other could aid him at this time.
A week later he took Eleanor back to London and placed her in the great specialist's hands. And then followed weary days and nights of anxious waiting when all but hope seemed fled. Then came a day when his library door opened softly and the great German doctor looked at Powers benevolently through his double glasses.
"My young friend," he said, "the work is finished. My last visit to this most interesting of patients has been paid. I await now only the confirmation of our theories."