rd his bench.

The glare of the lamp blinded him, and his eyes had to become adjusted
to the dimness as he turned his back on the lamp. But when the person
was ten feet away he recognised in a moment the face of Bauer, as he
came walking slowly toward him.

CHAPTER V

WALTER'S mind worked with what he afterward described to himself as an
unquestioning obedience to a first impulse, at the centre of which was
an instantaneous fear of discovery. Before Bauer had taken another step
nearer him he had turned, switched off the power from the lamp, and
snatched up a hammer from his bench.

With one blow he smashed the electrodes and then, as if made frantic
over the act, he struck at the mechanism until it was a heap of bent and
twisted wires and metal. It lay on his bench in a tangled mass and he
stooped over it and began to sweep it off into the refuse box. Bauer had
not yet said a word. Only with the first blow of the hammer he had
ejaculated "Ach!" As Walter was flinging bits of the lamp into the box
the German student came up and stood near, looking at Walter in
astonishment.

"What is the matter?"

Walter simply muttered some unintelligible thing. He was, to tell the
truth, tremendously excited, disturbed, overwhelmed by Bauer's return at
this particular time.

"I've--I've been experimenting and have failed," he finally managed to
say, stammering out the words with great difficulty. He was terrified to
think Bauer might read in his face the whole story.

But Felix Bauer was one of the most simple-hearted and unsuspicious
souls that ever lived. If he had not been, some of the things that are
going to be true of this story could never have happened. He looked at
Walter and then at the broken mechanism and simply said: "I am sorry you
have failed. But it is nothing by the side of dishonor."

And then for the first time Walter looked openly and squarely into
Bauer's face and saw tragedy there. The incandescent light over the
bench was not a strong one. But Bauer was close to him and Walter
quickly saw that he was not thinking of what Walter had done, was not
going to ask him any questions about it, because some other thing was
gripping him, some other thing so strong and insistent and sorrowful
that it took possession of him and dominated him. Walter's action had
already passed out of his mind as simply an incident connected with some
disappointing experiment, and he was looking at Walter with an appeal in
his