Serviss faced him abruptly. "Now, see here, Britt. You've seen a good deal of Miss Lambert's performances—what's your honest opinion of them?"
"Frankly, I don't know," he answered, with a smile. "Since rereading Zöllner and Crookes and going over my notes and those of Dr. Randall, I'm a little shaken, I confess. So far as human evidence goes these men prove that there is a world of phenomena ignored by science. I don't go so far as to say that these doings were the work of disembodied spirits, but I do admit that I am puzzled by things which I have witnessed with one sense or another. The things seem to tally in a most convincing way. This girl is repeating, substantially, the same phenomena witnessed by Crookes twenty-five years ago. The singular thing about the whole subject is that one man can't convince another by any amount of evidence. A personal revelation is necessary for each individual."
"Isn't that true of other faiths?" asked Kate.
"No, there's a difference. For example, I would take your brother's evidence as to a new germ; but as to a spirit—no. And yet one is quite as incredible as another. Crookes applied the same methods to the study of these manifestations that he used in his other researches, and piled up a mass of evidence, yet his fellows of the Royal Academy sneered or haw-hawed—and do yet. Do you know, doctor," he continued, "I have moments when I dimly suspicion that we scientists are a thought too arrogant. We lose the expectant mind. We assume that we've corralled and branded all facts, when, as a matter of history, there are scattered bunches of cattle all through the hills. Take Haeckel, for instance. He talks very like the head of a church laying down the law to you and to me as well as to the ignorant outsider. Spencer was a good deal less sure of himself. It takes a physical specialist to be cock-sure. Darwin never professed to solve the final mystery of life or death, but Haeckel and Metchnikoff do. They are so militant against religion that they become intolerant of their colleagues who presume to differ with them on matters that are purely speculative. Any one attempting to discuss new phases of human thought is a fakir. I am not willing to say that all the notions of the 'dualists' are survivals of the age of superstition, as Haeckel does. It may be that in the midst of all their fancies which are survivals there are some subtle perceptions of the future."
Serviss lifted his eyebrows in surprise. "That's a whole lot for you to concede. Weissmann must have been corrupting you."
Britt went on: "We must always remember that every age is an age of transition. We are losing faith in the revelations of the past, but we should not presume to define the faith of the future. Men will not live in the hopelessness which the monists would thrust upon them, they will not patiently wait while Pasteur and Koch and the other germ theorists labor to prolong the life of some other generation. They will always insist on having something to live for and to die for. I don't pretend to say what this faith will be, but it will be sufficing."
Kate exclaimed with glowing eyes: "And all this change in you two men has come about through the influence of a pretty girl!"
The two inexorables looked at each other with a certain air of timidity, and Britt's face expanded in a slow, sly smile. "You've discovered us. We are human, like the rest of our sex, if you catch us out of our laboratories. Theoretically we hold life of no account actually we're all lovers or husbands." A mockery more moving than tears came into his voice. "My hopeless philosophy, dear lady, arises from weak nerves and a poor digestion. I would give all I know of science, all I expect to be in my profession, and all I hope to be after I am dead, for just five years of health, such as Lambert's miners squander in carousals every Saturday night in the saloons of Colorow. I hold with Haeckel in one thing—I believe in a man's right to suicide, and when I find myself of no further use to the sick I shall slip quietly out. I hope I won't have to poison Clarke before I go. I'd do it cheerfully if I thought it the only way to rid that girl of him." Seeing that his hostess was really shocked by these words, he lightly ended: "However, I think such extreme measures unnecessary. I'm going to send Lambert on to kill him for me."
Kate looked at Morton with inquiring eye—he shook his head.
Britt resumed: "I am trusting in you, Serviss. If I could be sure of living two weeks longer I would stay and help, but money and breath are now vital to me, and I must go. However, I'm perfectly willing to put Clarke out of the way if you advise it. He really ought to die, Mrs. Rice," he gravely explained as he rose to go. "He is a male vampire. To think of him despoiling that glorious young soul maddens me. I am the son of a coarse, powerful, sensual, drunken father; but he neglected to endow me with his brutal health. My mother was an invalid; therefore, here am I, old and worn out at forty—that's why I worship youth and beauty. Health is the only heaven I know, and that is denied me." Here his smile died, his eyes softened, and his face set in impenetrable gravity. "Had I the power I would keep Viola Lambert forever young and forever virgin." Then, with a quick return to his familiar drawl: "But I am going away without even killing Clarke, to plod my little round in Colorow and wait news from you. If I do not see you again, Mrs. Rice, keep me in mind. I make the same promise your husband made—I will 'manifest' to you if I can."