asure. Perhaps we could go
for a short distance in--say three-quarters of an hour's time?"

Edith went slowly back to the house. Burton watched her disappear. The
professor and Mr. Bomford drew their chairs a little closer. The
professor cleared his throat.

"Mr. Burton," he began, "Mr. Bomford and I have a proposition to lay
before you. May I beg for your undivided attention?"

Burton withdrew his eyes from the French window through which Edith had
vanished.

"I am quite at your service," he answered quietly. "Please let me hear
exactly what it is that you have to say."

CHAPTER XVII

BURTON DECLINES

The professor cleared his throat.

"In the first place, Mr. Burton," he said, "I feel that I owe you an
apology. I have taken a great liberty. Mr. Bomford here is one of my
oldest and most intimate friends. I have spoken to him of the
manuscript you brought me to translate. I have told him your story."

Mr. Bomford scratched his side whiskers and nodded patronizingly.

"It is a very remarkable story," he declared, "a very remarkable story
indeed. I can assure you, Mr.--Mr. Burton, that I never listened to
anything so amazing. If any one else except my old friend here had told
me of it, I should have laughed. I should have dismissed the whole
thing at once as incredible and preposterous. Even now, I must admit
that I find it almost impossible to accept the story in its entirety."

Burton looked him coldly in the eyes. Mr. Bomford did not please him.

"The story is perfectly true," he said. "There is not the slightest
necessity for you to believe it--in fact, so far as I am concerned, it
does not matter in the least whether you do or not."

"Mr. Burton," the professor interposed, "I beg that you will not
misunderstand Mr. Bomford. His is not a militant disbelief, it is
simply a case of suspended judgment. In the meantime, assuming the
truth of what you have told us--and I for one, you must remember, Mr.
Burton, have every faith in your story--assuming its truth, Mr. Bomford
has made a most interesting proposition."

Burton, with half-closed eyes, was listening to the singing of a thrush
and watching the sunshine creep through the dark foliage of the cedar
trees. He was only slightly interested.

"A proposition?" he murmured.

"Precisely," Mr. Cowper assented. "We have an appeal to make to you,
an appeal on behalf of science, an appeal on behalf of your
fellow-creatures, an appeal on behalf of yoursel