Then, suddenly, came a sound, like the sound of a tolling bell: faint, as if infinitely far; muffled, as though heard through thick swathings of darkness,—a deep vibrating resonance with vast gulfs of silence between each stroke. And the Hand appeared to tighten on the rod. And I saw far above the Hand, towards the apex of the darkness, a circle of dim phosphorescence, a ghostly sphere whence these sounds came throbbing; and at the last stroke the Hand vanished, for the hour had come, and I heard a noise of many waters. But the black rod remained as a great band across the sky. And then a voice, which seemed to run to the uttermost parts of space, spoke, saying: “There will be no more pain.” At that an almost intolerable gladness and radiance rushed in upon me, and I saw the circle shining white and bright, and the rod black and shining, and many other things else distinct and clear. And the circle was the face of the clock, and the rod the rail of my bed. Haddon was standing at the foot, against the rail, with a small pair of scissors on his fingers; and the hands of my clock on the mantel over his shoulder were clasped together over the hour of twelve. Mowbray was washing something in a basin at the octagonal table, and at my side I felt a subdued feeling that could scarce be spoken of as pain. The operation had not killed me. And I perceived suddenly that the dull melancholy of half a year was lifted from my mind. THE RECONCILIATION Temple had scarcely been with Findlay five minutes before he felt his old resentments, and the memory of that unforgettable wrong growing vivid again. But with the infatuation of his good resolution still upon him, he maintained the air of sham reconciliation that Findlay had welcomed so eagerly. They talked of this and that, carefully avoiding the matter of the separation. Temple at first spoke chiefly of his travels. He stood between the cabinet of minerals and the fireplace, his whiskey on the mantel-board, while Findlay sat with his chair pushed back from his writing-desk, on which were scattered the dozen little skulls of hedgehogs and shrew mice upon which he had been working. Temple’s eye fell upon them, and abruptly brought his mind round from the topic of West Africa. “And you—” said Temple. “While I have been wandering I suppose you have been going on steadily.” “Drumming along,” said Findlay. “To the Royal Society and fame and all the things we used to dream about—How long is it?” “Five years—since our student days.” Temple glanced round the room, and his eye rested for a moment on a round greyish-drab object that lay in the corner near the door. “The same fat books and folios, only more of them, the same smell of old bones, and a dissection—is it the same one?—in the window. Fame is _your_ mistress?” “Fame,” said Findlay. “But it’s hardly fame. The herd outside say, ‘Eminence in comparative anatomy.’”