e that have
their origin upon the surfaces of the planets and perhaps of the more
distant stars."

"Great heavens!" exclaimed Mary, "imagine a man who can want to let
loose upon our poor little world every horrible noise that happens in
the stars. Why, what under heaven would be the use of it?"

"Well, one might communicate with them. Conceivably even one might hear
the speech of their inhabitants, if they have any; always presuming
that such an instrument could be made, and that it can be successfully
insulated."

"Hear the speech of their inhabitants! That is your old idea, but you
will never succeed, that's one blessing. Morris, I suspect you; you want
to stop at home here to work at this horrible new machine; to work for
years, and years, and years without the slightest result. I suppose that
you didn't invent that about the measles and the scarlatina, did you?
The two of them together sound rather clumsy, as though you might have
done so."

"Not a bit, upon my honour," answered Morris. "I will go and get the
letter," and, not sorry to escape from further examination, he went.

Whether the cause were Mary's doubts and reproaches, or the infant's
gums, or the working of his own conscience,--he felt that a man with
a teething baby has no right to cultivate the occult. For quite a long
period, a whole fortnight, indeed, Morris steadily refrained from any
attempt to fulfil his dangerous ambition to "pierce the curtain of
thick night." Only he read and re-read Stella's diary--that secret,
fascinating work which in effect was building a wall between him and the
healthy, common instincts of the world--till he knew whole pages of it
by heart. Also he began a series of experiments whereof the object was
to produce an improved and more sensitive aerophone.

That any instrument which the intellect of man could produce would
really succeed in conveying sounds which, if they exist at all, are born
in the vast cosmic areas that envelope our earth and its atmosphere, he
believed to be most improbable. Still, such a thing was possible, for
what is not? Moreover, the world itself as it rushes on its fearful
journey across the depths of space has doubtless many voices that have
not yet been heard by the ears of men, some of which he might be able to
discover and record. At the least he stood upon the threshold of a new
knowledge, and now a great desire arose in him to pass its doors, if so
he might, for who could tell what he