PHASE THE FOURTH.
The confronting glance of the master and his pupil was not one of those casual encounters of the eye which lasts but for a second, and terminates in the almost instantaneous withdrawal of the vanquished orb. On the contrary, the scrutiny was long and painful. Each seemed determined to conquer, and both knew that flight was defeat, and quailing ruin. The photographer felt a consciousness of superiority in himself, in his cause and his intentions. These being pure and commendable, he experienced no sentiment akin to the weakness of guilt. The girl, on the other hand, struggled with the emotions of terror, curiosity and defiance. He thought, "Will she yield?" She, "Is this man in earnest?" Neither seemed inclined to speak, yet both grew impatient.
Nature finally vindicated her own law, that the most powerful intellect must magnetize the weaker, and Lucile, dropping her eye, said, with a sickened smile, "Sir, are you jesting?"
"I am incapable of trickery," dryly responded Pollexfen.
"But not of delusion?" suggested the girl.
"A fool may be deceived, a chemist never."
"And you would have the fiendish cruelty to tear out one of my eyes before I am dead? Why, even the vulture waits till his prey is carrion."
"I am not cruel," he responded; "I labor under no delusion. I pursue no phantom. Where I now stand experiment forced me. With the rigor of a mathematical demonstration I have been driven to the proposition set forth in this agreement. Nature cannot lie. The earth revolves because it must. Causation controls the universe. Men speak of accidents, but a fortuitous circumstance never happened since matter moved at the fist of the Almighty. Is it chance that the prism decomposes a ray of light? Is it chance, that by mixing hydrogen and oxygen in the proportion of two to one in volume, water should be the result? How can Nature err?"
"She cannot," Lucile responded, "but man may."
"That argues that I, too, am but human, and may fall into the common category."