The Tyranny of the Dark. Garland Hamlin

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СКАЧАТЬ of musical New York. My work confines me to my 'shop' very closely, and when I go out I associate almost wholly with my peculiar kind. However, I can easily secure information as to the best schools of music, for I have several friends who know all about it. I interrupted you—please continue."

      This pleasant, straightforward speech restored her confidence. "I think I was about to say, sir, that it may seem strange to you that I should so suddenly ask your advice, but, you see—"

      "Oh, not at all," he genially interrupted. "I am consulted on all kinds of matters; in fact, I pass for a real doctor—out on the trail. I carry a little medicine-case for emergencies, and I assume all the authority of the regular practitioner—on occasion. I shall be very sorry if my distaste for the title 'professor' leads you to think me unsympathetic. I shall be very glad to assist you in any way."

      "Thank you. You see, I was brought up to esteem learning, and we seldom meet one of your eminence—we are so completely out of the world here—it is a great pleasure to us—"

      Footsteps just outside of the screen-door announced the return of the girl, who entered composedly, followed by a young man. Her manner was cold, her glance aloof, as she greeted Serviss.

      "I'm glad you came," she said. "I was afraid you would forget us." She turned towards her escort, who had halted in the doorway. "Professor Serviss, this is the Reverend Mr. Clarke, the pastor of our church."

      As Serviss shook hands with the Reverend Clarke he experienced a distinct shock of repulsion—an unaccountable feeling, for the clergyman was decidedly handsome, at first sight. But his hand was cold, his face pallid, and a bitter line, the worn pathway of a sneer, curved at one corner of his mouth. "Unwholesome, anæmic," was Serviss's inward comment as he turned away to address the girl, whose change of manner exerted a new witchery over him.

      She was dressed in black for some reason, and her face seemed both sad and morose, but the graceful dignity of her strong young body was enhanced by her dark gown. Her hands, her feet, were shapely, without being dainty. "Plainly these women come of good stock, no matter what the husband and father may be," Serviss thought. He resented the clergyman's intrusive presence more and more. "Is he brought in as a safeguard?" he asked himself.

      Mr. Clarke's attitude was certainly forbidding. He perched in grim, expectant silence on the edge of his chair, waiting, watching. His lean face had the blue-white look of the much-shaven actor, and his manner was as portentous as that of a tragedian.

      "What the devil does he mean by staring at me like that?" Serviss continued to ask himself. "Does he expect me to go off like a bomb?"

      He had started a discussion of the weather or some other harmless topic, when Clarke began, in a deep voice, with the formal inflections of the parson: "Miss Lambert tells me you are from Corlear University, professor?"

      Serviss groaned and threw up his hands with a comical gesture. "Well, let it go at that. I suppose it explains me to call me 'professor.' Yes, I have a connection there—I draw a salary from the institution."

      The clergyman regarded him soberly, as did the women, without sharing his humor in the least. Evidently being a professor in a university was no light thing to a Western preacher. "She tells me you have proposed to act as her adviser—"

      Again Serviss protested. "Oh, nothing so formidable as that, my dear sir. I have promised to make inquiries for her." Then, obscurely moved to create a better impression in the girl's mind, he added: "I shall be very happy, of course, to do all that is in my power to aid you, Miss Lambert, but, as I have just been saying to your mother, I can only act through my friends. Nobody enjoys music more than I, but no one can possibly know less about it. In these days of specialization one is forced to one's own little groove in order to achieve practical results. General culture is impossible to specially trained sharps like myself."

      "What is your specialty, may I ask?" inquired Clarke, remotely.

      "I usually answer 'bugs,' but when I wish to be quite understood I explain that I am a physiological chemist and biologist. At the present moment I am assistant in the pathological department of the Corlear Medical College."

      The preacher seemed to lighten a little. "Ah! that is a noble study, a study of incalculable service to mankind. I am deeply interested in that line of thought myself—I may say vitally interested, for I suffer from lung trouble. One by one the germs of disease are being discovered and their antitoxins catalogued." It was evident that he was anxious to impress the women with his wonderful understanding of the scientist's work and aims.

      His tone was so sententious that Serviss instantly became flippant, as an offset. "Yes, one by one we round 'em up! But don't think me unfriendly to the 'beasts.' They have their uses. I'd no sooner kill a bacterium than a song-bird. I think we care too highly for the cancerous and the consumptive. I'm not at all sure that humanity oughtn't to be hackled like weeds, and so toughen its hold on life. Germs may be blessings in disguise."

      Clarke pursued his way. "How little we know about their reactions—their secretions. You've given some attention to the X-ray and its effect on these cells, I presume?"

      Serviss inwardly grinned to think what Weissmann would say at sight of his assistant sitting in solemn discussion of the germs and X-rays with a village clergyman and two reverential women. "Why, yes, I've considered it. Naturally, any new thing that bears on my specialty makes me sit up. I've even done a little experimenting with it."

      "But have you considered the bearing of all these subtleties of science upon"—he hesitated—"a—upon certain—a—occult phenomena?"

      Serviss eyed him non-committally. "Well, what, for instance?"

      "Well, upon, say, telepathy—and—a—well, upon spiritual healing—and the like."

      "I can't say that I have; I don't exactly see the connection. Furthermore, I don't believe in these particular delusions. My work concerns the material facts of life, not the dying superstitions of the race. I have no patience with any morbid theory of life."

      This remark plainly produced a sensation. The preacher cast a significant glance at the mother, and the girl looked away at the lamp, a flush upon her face.

      "Hello!" exclaimed Serviss, under his breath. "Have I discovered a neat of cranks? I've been enlisted on somebody's side—I wonder whose?"

      The clergyman faced him again and calmly asked: "Have you ever investigated these occult phenomena?"

      "Certainly not. I have no time to waste on such imaginings. My time is all taken in a study of certain definite processes in the living organism."

      A light began to glow in the eyes of the young clergyman. "I suppose you class mental healing among the delusions?"

      "Most assuredly I do," answered Serviss, with the remorselessness of youth.

      "You would say that the mind of man cannot mend the body of another—"

      "If you mean directly—in the manner of 'faith cures' and the like—I would answer certainly not, unless the disorder happens to be in itself due to a delusion. I can imagine the hypochondriac being cured by mental stimulus." He felt that he was drawing near the point at issue, and his eyes shone with glee.

      The preacher set his trap. "You believe in the action of a drug—say, prussic acid—you believe it will kill?"

      "Yes, СКАЧАТЬ