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My mind was fixed on one salient issue: how to get Natalie Brande out of her brother's evil influence. This would be better compassed when I myself was outside the scope of his extraordinary influence. And so I went without delay. For some time after my return to London, I went about visiting old haunts and friends. I soon tired of this. The haunts had lost their interest.
Next morning I was early astir, for I must see Natalie Brande without delay, and I felt sure she would be no sluggard on that splendid summer day. I tried the lawn between the house and the lake shore. I did not find her there. I found her friend Miss Metford. The girl was sauntering about, swinging a walking-cane carelessly.
I have put both it and Brande himself out of gear." "Thank God!" she gasped, and then a sudden faintness came over her. It passed quickly, and as soon as she was sufficiently restored, I begged her to go below. She pleaded that she could not sleep, and asked me to remain with her upon the deck. "It would be absurd to suppose that either of us could sleep this night," she very truly said.
On the way back I was discreetly silent. When we reached the house I went to look for Herbert Brande. He was engaged in his study, and I could not intrude upon him there. To do so would be to infringe the only rigid rule in his household. Nor had I an opportunity of speaking to him alone until after dinner, when I induced him to take a turn with me round the lake.
Standing on a flat rock side by side, I nerved myself to ask this girl the same question I had asked her friend, Edith Metford, how much she knew of the extraordinary and preposterous Society as I still tried to consider it which Herbert Brande had founded.
For the sake of this girl, and for the manifestly impossible purpose of protecting her from herself as well as others, I had surrendered myself to the probable vengeance of a band of cut-throats if I betrayed them, and to the certain vengeance of the law if I did not. Brande, notwithstanding his constant scepticism, was scrupulously truthful. His statement of fact must be relied upon.
"There are no limits," Brande said decisively. "No man can say to science 'thus far and no farther. No man ever has been able to do so. No man ever shall!" Amongst the letters lying on my breakfast-table a few days after the meeting was one addressed in an unfamiliar hand. The writing was bold, and formed like a man's. There was a faint trace of a perfume about the envelope which I remembered.
In the fulness of my heart, I said aloud: "It is a good thing to be alive." "It is a good thing to be alive," Natalie Brande repeated slowly, gazing, as it were, far off through her half-closed eyelids. Then turning to me and looking at me full, wide-eyed, she asked: "A good thing for how many?" "For all; for everything that is alive." "Faugh! For few things that are alive. For hardly anything.
I excused myself by saying candidly that I wished to be alone. My own company soon became unendurable. In despair I turned into a music hall. The contrast between my mental excitement and the inanities of the stage was too acute, so this resource speedily failed me. Then I betook myself to the streets again. Here I remembered a letter Brande had put into my hand as I left the hall.
A little grey cloud obscured the blue light. When it cleared away, the revolving globes had disappeared. "What do you think of it?" he asked carelessly. "What is it? What does it mean? Is it the solar system or some other system illustrated in miniature? I am sorry for the misadventure." "You are partly correct," Brande replied. "It is an illustration of a planetary system, though a small one.
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