"Greater far--greater than that," he answered. "Such a vulgar and mechanical triumph is not one I would seek. In a material age it is perhaps a great thing for this or that scientist to invent a means of transit quicker and surer than another. But what is it, after all? Mere accurate scientific knowledge supplemented by inventive power. No! Such inventions as the steam-engine, printing, gun-powder, are great in their way, but they have only revolutionized the surface of things; the human soul remains as it was before. What I now know is a far, far loftier and more marvellous thing." In his excitement he had risen and was bending over her. Now she also rose, and stared into his face with one hand upon his arm. "Oh, tell me," she said, "what in life can be so strange, so terrible in its effects as this you speak of?" "Listen," he answered once more. "You know what LIGHT is? You know that it can be split up into its component parts by means of the prism in the spectroscope?" "Every child knows that to-day," she answered. "Good!" he replied. And he went on. "I am putting this in the very simplest possible language. I want you to see the broadest, barest, simplest outlines. Do you know anything of the human mind? What should you say hypnotism was, for instance, in ordinary words?" "Surely," she replied, "it is the power of one brain acting upon another." "Exactly," he said, "and in what way? How is a brain, not physically touching another brain, able to influence it?" "By magnetism," she replied, "by"--she hesitated for a word--"by a sort of current passing from one brain to another." He held out both his hands in front of him. They were clasped, and she saw that his wrists were shaking. He was terribly excited. "Yes," he went on, his voice dropping lower and lower and becoming even more intense, "you have said exactly the truth. The brain is a marvellous instrument, a sensitive instrument, an electric instrument which is constantly giving out strange, subtle, and hitherto uninvestigated currents. It is like the transmitter at the top of Signor Marconi's wireless telegraphy station. Something unseen goes out into the air, and far away over the Mother of Oceans something answers to its influence. That is exactly what happens with the human brain. Countless experiments have proved it, the scientists of the world are agreed." "Then----?" she said. "Supposing I had discovered how to collect these rays or vibrations, for that is the better word, these delicate vibrations which come from the human brain?" "I think I begin to see," Marjorie said slowly, painfully, as if the words were forced from her and she spoke them under great emotion. "I think I begin to see a little light." "Ah," he answered, "you are always above ordinary women. There is no one in the world like you. Your brain is keen, subtle, strong. You were destined for me from the first."