Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1916-05-07

science"
There was determination in the force
with which he showed the drawer into
place again.
These devils will stop a. nothing
the world has never seen such power
full force for cvil--yet. against all the
odds will whit love can win
He hurried to his desk to telephone
Tor messenger. Then almost fever
ishly he wrote "a note upon his profess
sional paper Carefully nc reread it.
and. for the first time since this dis
quoting discovery of the pantagrarn
his characteristic smile. almost boyish
In It's charm, returned TO the calm
mouth.
II have never been able to meet her
yeti is doubly fortunate TO have my
chance under these circumstanccs"-he
told himself AS he sealed the envelope
There was "A ,imid knock upon the
laboratory door
THE messenger boy. sir" It was
tho maid
Tell him 20 rush this 70 the address
on the envelope. and not to stop to
read nickel novel on the trip" Alden
drew some change from drawer in
the table. Here. Mary. give the young
man this lubricant 10 speed the ma
chinery."
The woman. peering almost fearfully
about her at the strange Instruments
OF the laboratory. nodded and disap-
pcared abruptly. To her. as to tho
other servants, tho doctor was man
OF uncanny ways-the weird laboratory
was safe enough from the Intrusion.
OF the superstitious folk below stairs
puzzle to nearly all OF his friends and
relatives
Unusually successful for a man Of his
years, after a brilliant career in Ameri
can and Continental medical institu-
p"ns. ne had surprised every one by
his strange retiremen, from active
participation in his lucrative practice
TWO years before
Assured Of comfort by modest
competence. he hcrmitizcd himself.
ncS!ccting his clubs. his social connec-
lions, and. TO their great chagrin. even
MS kinspeople. who had come 10 re-
sard his career as veritable family
possession. His queer absorption In
i"he!y laboratory work, his mysterious
unheralded and unchronicled visits 10
india to China, TO Egypt and other
ridiculously questionable resorts"
the blood tie busy-bodies
Yet DR.. Alden had smiled with i'm
pcrturbable amiab!lity at all remon-
STRANGE and advice.
My life is devoted to task that
means more to humanity than you can
conceive, he had told them. mysteri-
"us!E And adding the insult OF cross
advice to the injury OF withheld con-
hdence. he had ended the conference
with: Many poor farmers have
amnssed fortunes by toiling on their
own crops. instead of those of their
neighbors."
Quiet as had been his labors. during
these two years of solitary ploddinG
nc had attained a distinguished repu-
tation in the investigation of the
psEchic-of clarvoyance, medium"
phenomena, hypnotism, telepathy
But the supreme results OF his
studies had not yet been laid be-
fore his colleagues. either in the scIen
tiic magazines or the medical schools
On this he had been secretive-for
he had touched upon field of the
occult barely limited at by the "initia-
i've and little suspected by the most
forward looking scientists.
pr. Alden had discovered an ominous,
intangible yet shocking powerful force
OF psychic evil in the life about him
Mysterious. ineHplicable tragedies and
crimes had baff1ed the police of the
city; they had attracted his keen OBJ
servation. In every case he had dis
cerned certain subtle smilarities OF
method-so startling in their evil re-
semblances that he had even conhded
to A fellow investigator. the president
OF psychical research society. his
conviction that they were all the work
of single organization OF BLACK
MaGicians"
The doctor, we'll knowing that such
innlevolent cults had existed for cen
turtles throughout Europe and the
Orient. felt certain that since the be-
ginning OF the great war certain OF
these evil-doers had been driven to
America to continue their nefarious
work.
His theories had elected nothing
more than contemptuous though anita
bic incredulity; consequently his in
vestiGations had become more solitary
than ever.
At last. in this mornings alarming
development had como the absolute
justification or his suspicious. Yet, In
{. stead of the chilling fear which might
reasonably have been supposed to
Snaw at his heart. there was unde-
niable glow. thrill Of almost boyish
expectancy.
After his lonely Investigations Pay
son Alden welcomed the opportunity TO
enter the lists with antagonists whose
existence had hitherto been only theo-
retical.
In tho breast OF every follower OF the
s"dcntary professions, there fingers a
spark of Juvenile romanticism.
The man who labors with his Drawn
In tho company OF his fellows finds
outlet for his inherited physical com
hativeness In toll. in the change, the
stress. the strain. the katharsis of his
workaday environment.
But the man who labors with his
brain. brooding in solitude. creating in
lonely universe OF which he Is the
only tangible center, yearns for an
opportunity to leave his subjective
owl f@r 81,