Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1891-03-30

ment had yet to be taken. He spent
several hours of feverish work In his
laboratory that night and went to bed
feeling strangely feeble. The next day
he visited n certain famous London ply
stefan, who told him things which he no
sooner heard than he began to doubt
them, after the fashion of countless con-
sumptives. The mortal who suffers
from any pulmonary ill seldom can see
his own threatening DOOM Still
young man, Maynard had been attacked
with an arterial hemorrhage whose eff
fects absolute rest might have appeased
though never cured. But rest of any
sort was precisely what he now refused
to take. A double incentive hereafter
swayed him. He desired to perfect his
unparalleled drug, and he desired to use
it upon his own impaired body. II could
not endow him, he argued, with immu-
nifty from future disease, but it might
prolong his life for many decade by
the intense nutriment it gave to other
organs than those already harmed.
His wife watched his labors with cold
disrelish. She perceived that his health
was failing; he had never borne the
look of n man free from all lurking
malady, and now his CLASSY eyes and
sunlen checks told n somber tale. AL
| WAYS previously willing that his boys
should go and come as they chose during
his studies and experiments, he got into
| the habit of exiting them from his pres
ence while he brooded and toiled. The
two little fellows loved him very dearly
and resented being thus prescribed. He
would endeavor, at intervals, to console
them for this hated denial, but often
while giving them the fatherly caresses
for which they both hungered in their
pretty eagerness, he would either dis
Germ, or fancy that he discerned, n sort
of smoldering disapproval on the part
of their mother.
One day he said to himself, with q
wild gladness: 1T is found! / knew
victory was waiting just beyond my
reach, and have put forth the one
needed effort and grasped it" :.
That evening he poured into large
flask what he felt even more than
firmly convinced was the energy, Won
drously materialized and iquefied,
which permeated, in its vital sovereign
ty, the entire universe. He was
very unnerved and exhausted; he had
worked for many hours without the
least pause. 1t was nearly midnight,
and he went to one of his windows,
raising it recklessly, and letting n raw
wind blow into the chamber from a
clouded, opaque sky. On the sill of the
window (which he forgot to close) was
a wilted rose-bush in q common earth
en- pot. He drew the plant in from its
cherries ledge of shelter, and poured
round its root some of the fluid which
he had so lately distilled. Then he took
a glass and made himself a potion from
10 hi M a1f 1a-
side the table on which he had
placed the plant. He was about to
lift the glass to his lips when
something that a saner and less pas
sionately excited mind might have called
q mere vision of its own over-wrought
powers, burst upon him with delicious
violence of confirmation. The dropping
stems revived; the faded leaves grew
hardy and green; at the ends of the slim
stems buds broke, and then swelled un.
til pink petals CLEANED between their
dividing segments. At once these
petals unfolded, and rich roses were
born. 1t was the magic of the fairy tale
suddenly turned real; it was the giving
to necromancy an everyday gear. .
But now what had suddenly happened?
Maynard, with colorless face and strain
ing eyes, leaned forward. The rose.
bush was again it's previous withered
self. Just the same old dry, thorny
stalk, and the same effete, blighted
LEAKAGE! What did this re-transforma,
ton mean? Had he dreamed the fanci'
full and walked to the real? In an.
other moment he rose, staggering; his
brain whirled, and it seemed as if the
> floor dropped away from him in CULTS Of
darkness. Cropping for the bell-rope,
he pulled it twice or thrice. Then he
sank sank 1t was not with any
sense of painful fall, however; it was
more as If arms caught him and let him
: gently down in their embrace. But he
passionately recollected and craved the
fluid. Where had he left it? All, ht
> was incapable of thinking where. AnG
0 yet he so wanted It, he so wanted it!
But soon afterward-even sooner
his wife came hurrying into the roo,
he had ceased to know if he wanted Il
or not.
A great vein had burst. His life hung
by thread for days. All this while he
0 was unconscious. Then came a time
= during which he saw distorted shape:
i about his bed, and among them the
familiar, yet altered face of his wife
r He strove to ask her for that cherished
s task; did he fail to make his meaning
!: IN0EhfAeN IT,