“You will not,—you cannot be cruel, Féodor?” she said, in a voice which trembled with suppressed alarm. “You will not injure the poor woman who works for you so patiently, and who trusts you?”
“How can I tell whether I shall or shall not injure her?” he demanded, almost fiercely. “Science accepts no half service. The ‘poor woman,’ as you call her, knows her risks and has accepted them. So far, no injury has been done. If I succeed, she will have cause to thank me for the secret I have wrenched from Nature,—should I fail, she will not complain very much of a little more hurried exit from a world, where, according to her own statement, she is alone and unloved.”
Madame Dimitrius clasped and unclasped her delicate old hands nervously, and the diamonds in a ring she wore glittered scarcely more than the bright tears which suddenly fell from her eyes. Moved by a pang of remorse, he fell on his knees beside her.
“Why, mother!” he murmured, soothingly—“you should not weep! Can you not trust me? This woman, Diana May, is a stranger, and nothing to you. Certainly she is a kind, bright creature, with a great many undeveloped gifts of brain and character, which make her all the more useful to me. I give her as much chance as I give myself. If I let her alone,—that is to say, if I ignore all the reasons for which I engaged her, and allow her to become a mere secretary, or your domestic companion,—she goes on in the usual way of a woman of her years,—withering slowly—sinking deeper in the ruts of care, and fading into a nonentity for whom life is scarcely worth the living. On the other hand, if I continue my work upon her——”
“But what work?” asked his mother, anxiously. “What result do you expect?”
He rose from his kneeling attitude, and straightened himself to his full height, lifting his head with an unconscious air of defiance and pride.
“I expect Nature to render me obedience!” he said. “I expect the surrender of the Flaming Sword! It ‘turns every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life’—but the hilt must be given into my hand!”
“Féodor! Oh, my son! Such arrogance is blasphemy!”
“Blasphemy? Mother, you wrong yourself and me by the thought! Blasphemy is a lie to God, like the utterance of the ‘Credo’ by people who do not believe,—but there is no blasphemy in searching for a truth as part of God’s mind, and devoutly accepting it when found! The priest who tells his congregation that God is to be pleased or pacified by sufficient money in the collection plate blasphemes,—but I who most humbly adore His unspeakable Beneficence in placing the means of health and life in our hands, and who seek to use those means intelligently, do not blaspheme! I praise God with all my heart,—I believe in Him with all my soul!”
His attitude at the moment was superb; his expression as of one inspired. His mother looked at him fondly, but the tears were still in her eyes.