ON THE BACK TRAIL.
Edward found himself next day feverish and mentally disturbed; but he felt new life in the morning air. There was a vehicle available; a roomy buggy, after the fashion of those chosen by physicians, with covered tops to keep out the sun, and rubber aprons for the rain. And there was a good reliable horse, that had traveled the city road almost daily for ten years.
He finished his meal and started out. In the yard he found Gerald pale and with the contracted pupils that betrayed his deadly habit. He was taking views with a camera and came forward with breathless interest.
"I am trying some experiments with photographs on the line of our conversation," he said. "If the mind pictures can be revived they must necessarily exist. Do they? The question with me now is, can any living substance retain a photographic impression? You understand, it seems that the brain can receive these impressions through certain senses, but the brain is transient; through a peculiar process of supply and waste it is always coming and going. If it is true that every atom of our physical bodies undergoes a change at least once in seven years, how can the impressions survive? I have here upon my plate the sensitized film of a fish's eyes; I caught it this morning. I must establish, first, the proposition that a living substance can receive a photographic image; if I can make an impression remain upon this film I have gained a little point—a little one. But the fish should be alive. There are almost insuperable difficulties, you understand! The time will come when a new light will be made, so powerful, penetrating as to illumine solids. Then, perhaps, will the brain be seen at work through the skull; then may its tiny impressions even be found and enlarged; then will the past give up its secrets. And the eye is not the brain." He looked away in perplexity. "If I only had brain substance, brain substance—a living brain!" He hurried away and Edward resumed his journey to the city, sad and thoughtful.
"It was not wise," he said, "it was not wise to start Gerald upon that line of thought. And yet why not as well one fancy as another?" He had no conception of the power of an idea in such a mind as Gerald's.
"You did not mention to me," he said an hour later, sitting in Eldridge's office, "that I would have a ward in charge out at Ilexhurst. You naturally supposed I knew it, did you not?"
"And you did not know it?" Eldridge looked at him in unaffected astonishment.
"Positively not until the day after I reached the house! I had never heard of Gerald Morgan. You can imagine my surprise, when he walked in upon me one night."
"You really astound me; but it is just like old Morgan—pardon me if I smile. Of all eccentrics he was the most consistent. Yes, you have a charge and a serious one. I am probably the only person in the city who knows something of Gerald, and my information is extremely limited. With an immense capacity for acquiring information, a remarkable memory and a keen analysis, the young man has never developed the slightest capacity for business. He received everything, but applied nothing. I was informed by his uncle, not long since, that there was no science exact or occult into which Gerald had not delved at some time, but his mind seemed content with simply finding out."
"Gerald has been a most prodigious reader, devouring everything," continued the judge, "ancient and modern, within reach, knows literature and politics equally well, and is master of most languages to the point of being able to read them. I suppose his unfortunate habit—of course you know of that—is the obstacle now. For many years now I believe, the young man has not been off the plantation, and only at long intervals was he ever absent from it. Ten or fifteen years ago he used to be seen occasionally in the city in search of a book, an instrument or something his impatience could not wait on."