Joseph did not immediately answer the old man's question about his son. Instead of that he turned quickly to the journalist. "Yes," he said; "but with God all things are possible." Black started violently. His very thoughts had been read instantly, and answered as swiftly. Then a curious resentment mounted in his brain against Joseph. Who was this man who sent a suffering invalid to sleep in a moment by his hypnotic touch; who brought terror, remorse, and shame into a great lighted theatre; who dared to tell the wealthiest and most influential people in London that they marched beneath the standard of Beelzebub; who even now had read his secret thoughts with unerring intuition? With a slight sneer, foreign to his usual nature, but he was frightened and was trying to reassure himself, he said-- "That is all very well, sir, no doubt; but miracles do not happen." "Oh, yes, sir, they do--they do!" cried the old verger, wringing his hands. "Oh, don't say that, sir; miracles aren't over yet. I don't like the way you say it, sir. God will surely never let my poor Bill die!" Joseph took no notice of the poor old fellow's entreaty. He spoke to Black. "My brother," he said, "and what is a miracle?" Black thought for a moment, and then replied, though he did not know it, in the words of Hume: "A miracle," he said, "is a violation of the laws of Nature, and therefore impossible--Huxley showed that long ago." The journalist was quite unconscious of the progress of modern thought, and in his ignorance believed that Huxley was the last word in philosophic criticism. "Huxley," Joseph answered quietly, "has said that if a miracle, such as the restoring to life of a dead man, were actually to take place, the phenomenon would simply become a problem for further scientific investigation. That is perfectly true as far as it goes, nor does it in any way discredit the possibility of a miracle. Is it not a fact that every day new natural laws, previously entirely unsuspected by any one, are being discovered? Have not the papers of late been full of strange news of great chemical discoveries, such as radium--electrical wonders, such as the sending of messages without wires? What are these but natural laws? But would they not have been miracles three hundred years ago?