"I am neither wise nor
great. Your perfect secret would be too much for me. I might be tempted
to keep it for my own use. Come home with me, and apply it well
yourself."
Julius was silent for a space, murmuring only, "I have no time for
argument." Then his face assumed the white sickness of death, and his
dark eyes seemed to grow larger and to burn with a concentrated fire.
"Lefevre!" he panted in amazement, "do you know that you are refusing
such a medical and spiritual secret as the world has not known for
thousands of years? A secret that would enable you--_you_--to work cures
more wonderful than any that are told of the greatest Eastern
Thaumaturge?"
"I have discovered a method," answered the doctor,--"an imperfect,
clumsy method--for myself, of transmitting nervous force or ether for
curative purposes. That, for the present, must be enough for me. I
cannot hear your secret, Julius."
"Lefevre, I beg of you," pleaded Julius, "take it from me. I have
promised myself, as a last satisfaction, that the secret I have
guarded--it is not altogether mine: it is an old oriental secret--that
now I would hand it over to you for the good of mankind, that at the
last I might say to myself, 'I have, after all, opened my hand liberally
to my fellow-men!' For pity's sake, Lefevre, don't deny me that small
final satisfaction!"
"Julius," said Lefevre, firmly, "if your method is so perfect--as I
believe it must be from what I have seen--I dare not lay on myself the
responsibility of possessing its secret.
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