to science? He was no
loss to mankind, and only sentimentalists could have blamed anyone for
his death. I should have succeeded in the interchange of atoms which we
were working on, and Smith would at this moment be hailed as the first
man to travel through space in invisible form, projected on radio waves,
had it not been for the fact that the alloy which conducts the three
types of sinusoidal failed me and burned out. Yes, it was an error in
calculation, and Smith would now be called the Lindbergh of the Atom but
for that. Yet Smith has not died in vain, for I have finally corrected
this error--science is but trial and correction of error--and all will
be well."

"But Allen--Allen must not die at all!" she cried. "For weeks he has
been in the death house: it is killing me. The Governor refuses him a
pardon, nor will he commute my son's sentence. In three days he is to
die in the electric chair, for a crime which you admit you alone are
responsible for. Yet you remain in your laboratory, immersed in your
experiments, and do nothing, nothing!"

* * * * *

The tears came now, and she sobbed hysterically. It seemed that she was
making an appeal to someone in whom she had only a forlorn hope.

"Nothing?" repeated Burr, pursing his thin lips. "Nothing? Madam, I have
done everything. I have, as I have told you, perfected the experiment.
It is successful. Your son has not suffered in vain, and Smith's name
will go down with the rest of science's martyrs as one who died for the
sake of humanity. But if you wish to save your son, you must be calm.
You must listen to what I have to say, and you must not fail to carry
out my instructions to the letter. I am ready now."

Light, the light of hope, sprang in the mother's eyes. She grasped his
arm and stared at him with shining face, through tear-dipped eyelashes.

"Do--do you mean it? Can you save him? After the Governor has refused
me? What can you do? No influence will snatch Allen from the jaws of the
law: the public is greatly excited and very hostile toward him."

A quiet smile played at the corners of Burr's thin lips.

"Come," he said. "Place this cloak about you. Allen wore it when he
assisted me."

The professor replaced his own mask and conducted the woman into the
interior of the laboratory.

"I will show you," said Professor Burr.

She saw before her now, on long metal shelves which appeared to be
delicately poised on fine scal