swered, with his puzzling smile. “You were standing round the window, and I thought it would startle you if I chose that mode of ingress, so I descended with incredible skill down the chimney.”
“I see a little soot on your left elbow,” returned Susie. “I hope you weren’t at all burned.”
“Not at all, thanks,” he answered, gravely brushing his coat.
“In whatever way you came you are very welcome,” said Dr. Porhoët, genially holding out his hand.
But Arthur impatiently turned to his host.
“I wish I knew what made you engage upon these studies,” he said. “I should have thought your medical profession protected you from any tenderness towards superstition.”
Dr. Porhoët shrugged his shoulders.
“I have always been interested in the oddities of mankind. At one time I read a good deal of philosophy and a good deal of science, and I learned in that way that nothing was certain. Some people, by the pursuit of science, are impressed with the dignity of man, but I was only made conscious of his insignificance. The greatest questions of all have been threshed out since he acquired the beginnings of civilisation and he is as far from a solution as ever. Man can know nothing, for his senses are his only means of knowledge, and they can give no certainty. There is only one subject upon which the individual can speak with authority, and that is his own mind, but even here he is surrounded with darkness. I believe that he shall always be
