"That is well," Mr. Rivers said. "But it is desirable you should understand from the outset that which you have undertaken. You may be detained here. The disease from which I suffer is, as you have been informed, incurable; though it is, I am happy to say, neither offensive or infectious. But though the final result is assured, the moment of its advent is uncertain. Neither I, nor the physicians who amiably expend their limited and somewhat empirical skill upon me, can determine the date at which this disease will prove fatal. I shall regret to cause you inconvenience, but the event is beyond my control. I may keep you waiting." "The longer the better, sir," Laurence said, smiling, and his smile was sincere and genial, of the sort which inspires confidence.--"That is," he added, "if you do not suffer unduly." "When the mind has realised the greatness of its own powers, and trained itself to their exercise, the will can almost invariably reduce suffering to endurable proportions," Mr. Rivers replied contemptuously, as dealing with a matter obvious, and so beneath discussion. He raised one transparent hand, pointed towards a chair, and then let his wrist drop again upon a supporting silken cushion. As he did so the two heavy rings he wore--one an amethyst set in brilliants and engraved with Arabic characters, the other a black scarab on a hoop of rough gold--slipped up the long phalange of his second finger to the knotted knuckle, and back again, with a dry rattle and chink. "Oblige me by sitting down, Laurence," he said. "I wish you to labour under no misapprehension as to my intentions in sending for you. A certain amount of business may need attention; but all that you can discuss with my agent, Armstrong,--a very worthy, though prejudiced person. My affairs are in order. I am not called upon to waste any of the time remaining to me upon them. Let me explain myself. The disease--for, to do so, I must refer to it once again--which is in process of destroying certain organs, and consequently paralysing certain functions of my body, has in no degree affected my mind. This retains the completeness of its lucidity. Indeed, I am disposed to believe that my enforced physical inactivity, and the small number of objects presented to my sight--I never leave this room--tend to exalt and stimulate my intellectual powers. You recall the legend of the ancient philosopher who plucked out his eyes, that, undisturbed by the vision of irrelevant objects, he might attain to greater concentration of thought. Disease, in limiting my activities, has gone far to confer upon me the boon which the philosopher in question strove, rather violently, to bestow upon himself. I have ever been a student. I propose to continue so to the last. My interest is unabated. My passion for knowledge--the sole passion of my life--remains in full force."