dazzling purity and texture, decay asserted
its powers, and one by one the petals
faded, shrunk, and fell away, disclosing a tiny
green fruit at the bottom of the calyx.

            CHAPTER THE SECOND.

TWO years had gone by since the day when
Paul had sown the seed that had produced
the tree of the forbidden fruit. He was now
two-and-twenty, but already had his youth
passed away for ever. The pursuit of studies
unfitted to the human brain; the concoction
of essences composed for the greater part
of deleterious substances, and compounded
with a labour, an anxiety, and often an
amount of failure and disappointment in
themselves as destructive as the terrible
processes the more material part of the work
required; the want of rest, the overwhelming,
engrossing weight of the one thought, the
one interest, had wrecked his health and
brought on him the infirmities of age, ere he
had arrived at full manhood.

Hugh, and others of his friends, had, at
various times, sought to recal him to himself,
and to bring him back into the world he had
left; but all their attempts were met with
impatience and neglect; and, at last, he had
succeeded in securing the void he sought to
establish, in isolating himself from all human
sympathy and interest. No love, no hate, no
care entered his mind, for any living creature.
To him the joys and sorrows, the hopes and
fears, that agitate mankind were unknown;
he had no smiles, no tears: he needed no
one's love, no one's aid: he had neither love
nor aid to offer to any one. To know was all
he desired, and he fell down and worshipped
the stock of a tree, as the representative of
knowledge.

Meanwhile the farther the plant had advanced
in its development, the slower had been the
process of that development; and the ripening
of the fruit was an operation of such intense
tediousness, that Paul's reason seemed often
on the point of giving way beneath the
ceaseless and prolonged tension. But the
thought—when it has arrived at its maturity,
I have but to eat and to know;
know all things, to know good and evil, to
expound the riddle of the universe, to
penetrate into the mysteries of the creation, that
not all the sages of ancient or modern times
could do more than guess at blunderingly; to
learn the secret of my own destiny, and of
the destiny of all mankind; to see why I was
born, and what I am to do, and whither my
spirit is to wend its flight!—this thought
called back his sinking reason, and made him
take patience till time should bring about
the accomplishment of his desires.

Thus looking forward, he never looked
back into the past that had been his, in which
to train mind and body to their proper ends;
to cultivate the heart, now dead within his
breast, to surround himself with love, the
"love of man made life of man that saves."
He never, for a moment, cared to grasp the
present that was yet all his own: he never
even thought—strange! that let the future
bring what knowledge it might, his forces,
mental and physical, were so far spent by
the unnatural stress they had undergone,
that there was little chance of his being
able to enjoy the prize he had wasted life to
obtain.

None of these thoughts occupied him. To
know was all he sought; the rest was
swallowed up in the one burning desire.

By degrees, the great fruit grew and
yellowed, and the bough that bore it bent beneath
its weight; so that Paul had to prop it up,
lest it should snap beneath its golden load.
An odour, less rich, but more subtle, and in
its nature and effects widely different from
that of the blossom, began to emanate from it.

Instead of the intoxicating, dreamy, reveries
that the flower's perfume had awakened
in Paul's brain, this filled it with a strange
dawning of lucidity. Things hitherto
incomprehensible began to assume significance;
isolated experiences became wonderfully
connected, the missing links his former senses
had failed to perceive, being supplied to
complete the chain.

Hints gradually gaining clearness, the
cause and nature and aim of the hidden
mysteries of existence, suggested themselves
to him; and, though he could only see in a
glass darkly, every day that the fruit
advanced towards maturity convinced him
more and more that he had but to wait till it
was fully ripe, to attain the sole hope and end
of his existence.

The day came. Paul saw that the
forbidden fruit had reached the culminating
point, and that it was now fit to be plucked
and eaten.

He had achieved the summit of his
utmost hopes, his furthest ambition.
Knowledge was there, within the grasp of his
hand,—in another moment he would be master
of the secret no mortal being had, until
this day, possessed. He would stand above
the angels of light and darkness. What,
then, stayed his hand? Why, each time
that he raised it, did it drop nerveless by his
side? Why did he hesitate and tremble?

One more effort, and the fruit was plucked
and was between his lips. He saw the past, the
present, and the future laid out before him as
God had ordained them, yet subject to the
influence of his own free will. He saw the past
as it might have been; not all bright, but strewn
with many flowers that had only wanted the
culture of his hand to yield him all their
beauty and perfume. He saw the heart that
a tender word, a kindly act of his, would
have bound to him for ever. He saw the
neglected work whose execution would have
brought him fame, and esteem, and
self-respect. He saw the pale phantom of the
woman that would have worshipped, and
tended, and clung round him; aiding,