Here, too, at an earlier period, he had studied the
wonders of the human frame, and attempted to fathom the very process
by which Nature assimilates all her precious influences from earth and
air, and from the spiritual world, to create and foster man, her
masterpiece. The latter pursuit, however, Aylmer had long laid aside
in unwilling recognition of the truth--against which all seekers
sooner or later stumble--that our great creative Mother, while she
amuses us with apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is yet
severely careful to keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended
openness, shows us nothing but results. She permits us, indeed, to mar,
but seldom to mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to make.
Now, however, Aylmer resumed these half-forgotten investigations; not,
of course, with such hopes or wishes as first suggested them; but
because they involved much physiological truth and lay in the path of
his proposed scheme for the treatment of Georgiana.
As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory, Georgiana was cold
and tremulous.
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