This place is a kind of House within a House. Those who enter from the South Porch see before them, more than half-way up the immense building, steps, upon which stands a high screen of wood-work. This screen, which is very ancient, protects the Inner House from entrance or observation. It runs round the whole enclosure, and is most profusely adorned with carved-work representing all kinds of things. For my own part, I have never examined into the work, and I hardly know what it is that is here figured. What does it advance science to carve bunches of grapes (which everybody understands not to be grapes) in wood? All these things in the House of Life--the carved wood, the carved stone, the carved marble, the lofty pillars, the painted windows--irritate and offend me. Yet the Arch Physician, who loved to sit alone in the Inner House, would contemplate these works of Art with a kind of rapture. Nay, he would wellnigh weep at thinking that now there are no longer any who can work in that useless fashion. As for what is within the Inner House, I must needs speak with caution. Suffice it, therefore, to say that round the sides of the screen are ancient carved seats under carved canopies, which are the seats of the Fellows; and that on a raised stone platform, approached by several steps, is placed the Coffer which contains the Secret of the Great Discovery. The Arch Physician alone had the key of the Coffer; he and his Suffragan alone possessed the Secret; the Fellows were only called into the Inner House when a Council was held on some new Discovery or some new adaptation of Science to the wants of Mankind. Now, after overhearing the intended treason of the Arch Physician, and witnessing his degradation and fall, I made haste to act; for I plainly perceived that if the miraculous Prolongation of the Vital Force should be allowed to pass out of our own hands, and to become public property, an end would at once be put to the Order and Discipline now so firmly established; the Authority of the College would be trampled under foot; everybody would begin to live as they pleased; the old social conditions might be revived; and the old social inequalities would certainly begin again, because the strong would trample on the weak. This was, perhaps, what Dr. Linister designed. I remembered, now, how long it was before he could forget the old distinctions; nay, how impossible it was for him ever to bring himself to regard me, though his Suffragan--whom he had formerly made his serving-man--as his equal. Thinking of that time, and of those distinctions, strengthened my purpose. What I did and how I prevented the treachery will approve itself to all who have the best interests of mankind at heart. * * * * *