the faces about him. Then out of the first chaos came the sense of
having awakened from some long, quiet sleep--of having suddenly opened
his eyes upon a world from which the morning mists had lifted, to see
himself--and the woman who stood always at the end of that upward
path--face to face for the first time. One by one his outer sensations
returned. At first he heard a blurred murmuring, then he became aware
that some of the men were looking at him curiously, that one of them had
addressed him. He smiled apologetically.

"I beg your pardon. I--I couldn't have been listening."

"I merely asked," repeated Floud, "how you expect to satisfy humanity
with the vague hope that you would substitute for the Christian promise
of eternal life."

He stared stupidly at the questioner.

"I--I don't know." He passed a hand slowly upward over his forehead.
"Really I can hardly trouble about those matters--there's so much life
to live. I think I knew a moment ago, but I seem to have forgotten,
though it's doubtless no great loss. I dare say it's more important to
be unafraid of life than to be unafraid of death."

"You were full of reasons a moment ago," reminded Whittaker--"some of
them not uninteresting."

"Was I? Oh, well, it's a small matter--I've somehow lost hold of it." He
laughed awkwardly. "It seems to have come to me just now that those who
study an apple until it falls from its stem and rots are even more
foolish than those who pluck and eat."