Two on a Tower

nd particularly after the interview above described. Ash Wednesday occurred in the calendar a few days later,

ingham blazed forth the denunciatory sentences of the Commination, nearly the whole force of them seemed to descend upon her own shoulders. Looking across the empty pews she saw t

, Swithin came forward to speak to her. This was a most

the world outside but little less. I had long suspected the true secret of their variability; but it was by the merest chance on earth

air, and waved his

lish it at once in some paper; nail your name to it, or somebody will seize the idea and

for the occasional green tint of Castor, and every difficulty. I said I would

e secrets. You may walk with me a little way, with great pleasure. Then go and write your account, so as to insure your ownership of the discovery. . . . But how you have watched!' she cried, in a sud

I couldn't tear myself away from the equatorial; it is such a wonderful possession that

at you will not commit such imprudences again; for w

pprehensively to be effect

aper. He promised to call as soon as his discove

isite for the overweening confidence of youth in the future, she permitted herself to be blinded to probabilities for the pleasure of sharing his dreams. It seemed not unreasonable to suppose the present hour to be the beginning of realization to her darling wish that this young man should

covery to be greeted. Knowing that immediate intelligence of the outburst would be brought to her by himself, s

did n

de the waiting still more tedious. On one of these occasions she ran a

. Yet she would have gone on to his house, had there not been one reason too many against such precipitanc

the gravel from the drive, while the sky was a zinc-coloured archi-vault of immovable cloud. It seemed as if the whole science of astronomy had

little abated she walked to the nearest hamlet, and in a conversation with the first old woman sh

a bad time for her, my l

ha

; and such a gentleman

something to do with t

ery, my

rt crept along the road. Tears brimmed into her eyes as she walked, an

'but I can't help it; and I don't

s. Martin's. Seeing a man coming she calmed herself sufficiently to ask him through her dropped veil

ric for the true scientific tone of mind; but there was no doubt that his assertion met with a most startling aptness all the difficulties which had accompanied the received theories on the phenomena attending those chang

directed to Greenwich, another to the Royal Society, another to a prominent astronomer. A b

gh the day was wet, dripping wet, he went on foot with them to a chief office, five miles off, and registered them. Quite exhausted by the walk, after his long night-work, wet through, yet sustained by the sense of a great achievement, he called

y while he read. Suddenly his eye was struck by an article. It was the review of a pamphlet by an Am

Swithin St. Cleeve. Another man had foresta

pair. In truth, the impishness of circumstance was newer to him than it would have been to a philosopher of threescore-and-ten. In a wild wish for annihilation

misery and wearine

s dark. He thought of his grandmother, and of her possible alarm at missing him. On attempting to rise, he found that he could hardly bend his joints, and that his clothes were as heavy as lead from saturati

ve described, and hastened along to the homestead in that state of anguish in which the heart is

and Lady Constantine was shown into the large room - so wide that the beams bent in the middle - where she took her seat

e was something wrong in the house. Mrs. Martin came downstairs fretting, her wonder

ttle of fish, my la

d, 'Hush!' and point

lied Swithin's grandmother. 'His b

is he

s moment; and we are more

know he would

y the large pasteboard telescope, that had been just such a failure as Crusoe's large boat; there were his diagrams, maps, globes, and celestial apparatus of various sorts. The absence of the worker, through illness or death

y the window, and Lady Con

will weaken you; it will excite you. I

and one irrepressib

dness in coming. My last excitement was when I lost the battle. . . . Do yo

recover; you are bette

today. But wh

r had been thrown away,' said his grandmother, 'that

own, and so little of me? Why, for every discovery made there are ten behind that await m

both you and all my few friends never, never to forgive me! It w

e thought she would remain to hear his report, and for this purpose withdrew, and sat down in a nook of

me out to the room she waited in, and crossed it on his w

nxiously asked. 'W

in the patient, spoke with the blunt candour nat

he replied; 'there's a

ired down

ack to Swithin's side, flung herself upon the bed an