t nine o'clock that
morning, his face was pale and his whole form trembled.

"Margaret," he cried, "what are we going to do about it? It is
wonderful; I cannot appreciate it. I have had all the men up in the
office this morning and pledged them to secrecy. Of course they won't
keep their promises, but it was all that I could do. I can think of no
particular damage which would come to me if this thing were known, but I
cannot bear that the public should get hold of it until I know something
myself. Margaret, I don't know anything."

"Have you had your breakfast?" she asked.

"No," he said; "I haven't thought of it."

"Did you eat anything last night?"

"I don't remember," he answered.

"Now I want you to come into the dining-room," said she. "I had a light
breakfast some time ago, and I am going to eat another with you. I want
you to tell me something. There was a man here the other day with a
patent machine for making button-holes--you know the old-fashioned
button-holes are coming in again--and if this is a good invention
it ought to sell, for nearly everybody has forgotten how to make
button-holes in the old way."

"Oh, nonsense!" said Roland. "How can you talk of such things? I can't
take my mind--"

"I know you can't," she interrupted. "You are all the time thinking of
that everlasting old hole in the ground. Well, I am tired of it; do let
us talk of something else."

Margaret Raleigh was much more than tired of that phenomenal hole in the
earth which had been made by the automatic shell; she was frightened by
it. It was something terrible to her; she had scarcely slept that night,
and she needed breakfast and change of thought as much as Roland.

But it was not long before she found that it was impossible to turn
his thoughts from that all-absorbing subject. All she could do was to
endeavor to guide them into quiet channels.

"What are you going to do this morning?" she asked, towards the close of
the breakfast.

"I am going to try to take the temperature of that shaft at various
points," said he.

"That will be an excellent thing," she answered; "you may make valuable
discoveries; but I should think the heat at that great depth would be
enough to melt your thermometers."

"It did not melt my lead or my sounding-wire," said he. And as he said
these words her heart fell.

The temperature of this great perforation was taken at many points,
and when Roland brought to Margaret the statement of the h