"Lefevre," said the strange voice, "I have come to show myself to you, because I know you are a true-hearted friend, and because I think you have that exquisite charity that can forgive all things." "_Show myself!_" ... As Lefevre listened to the strange voice and looked at the strange person, the suspicion came upon him--What if he were but regarding an Illusion? He had read in some of his mystical and magical writers, that men gifted with certain powers could project to a distance eidola or phantasms of varying likeness to themselves: might not this be such a mocking phantasm of Julius? He drew his hand across his eyes, and looked again: the figure still sat there. He put out his hand to test its substantiality, and the voice cried in a keen pitch of terror-- "Don't touch me!--for your own sake!... Why, Lefevre, do you look so amazed and overcome? Is not my wretched secret written in my face?" "And you are really Julius Courtney?" asked Lefevre, at length finding utterance, with measured emphasis, and in a voice which he hardly recognised as his own. "I am Julius Courtney--" He paused, for Lefevre had put his head in his hands, shaken with a silent paroxysm of grief. It wrung the doctor's heart, as if in the person that sat opposite him, all that was noblest and most gracious in humanity were disgraced and overthrown. "Yes," continued the voice, "I am Julius; there is no other Courtney that I know of, and soon there will be none at all." The doctor listened, but he could not endure to look again. "I am dying--I have been dying for a dozen years, and for a dozen years I have resisted and overcome death; now I surrender. I have come to my period. I shall never enter your house again. I have only come now to confess myself, and to ask a last favour of you--a last token of friendship." "I will freely do what I can for you, Julius," said the doctor, still without looking at him, "though I am too overcome, too bewildered, yet to say much to you." "Thank you. You will hear my story and understand. It contains a secret which I, like a blind fool, have only used for myself, but which you will apply for the wide benefit of mankind. The request I have to make of you is small, but it may seem extraordinary,--be my companion for twelve hours. I cannot talk to you here, enclosed and oppressed with streets of houses. Come with me for a few hours on the water; I have a fancy to see the sun rise for the last time over the sea. I have my yacht ready near London Bridge, and a boat waiting at the steps by Cleopatra's Needle; a cab will soon take us there. Will you come?" Lefevre did not look up. The voice of Julius sounded like an appeal from the very abode of death. Then he glanced in spite of himself in his face, and was moved and melted to unreserved compassion by the strained weariness of his expression--the open, luminous wistfulness of his eyes. "Yes; I'll go," said he. "But can't I do something for you first? Let me consider your case."