ght nothing
of this.

"Margaret!" cried Clewe, "how came you here?"

"I have been here all the time," she exclaimed; "or, at least, nearly
all the time." And as she spoke she drew back and looked at him, her
eyes full of happy tears. "Mr. Bryce telegraphed to me the instant he
knew you were going down, and I was here before you had descended
half-way."

"What!" he cried. "And all those messages came from you?"

"Nearly all," she answered. "But tell me, Roland--tell me; have you been
successful?"

"I am successful," he answered. "I have discovered everything!"

Bryce came forward.

"I will speak to you all very soon," said Clewe. "I can't tell you
anything now. Margaret, let us go. I wish to talk to you, but not until
I have been to my office. I will meet you at your house in a very few
minutes." And with that he left the building and fairly ran to his
office.

A quarter of an hour later Roland entered Margaret's library, where she
sat awaiting him. He carefully closed the doors and windows. They sat
side by side upon the sofa.

"Now, Roland," she said, "I cannot wait one second longer. What is it
that you have discovered?"

"When I arrived at the bottom of the shaft," he began, "I found myself
in a cleft, I know not how large, made in a vast mass of transparent
substance, hard as the hardest rock and as transparent as air in the
light of my electric lamps. My shell rested securely upon this
substance. I walked upon it. It seemed as if I could see miles below me.
In my opinion, Margaret, that substance was once the head of a comet."

"What is the substance?" she asked, hastily.

"It is a mass of solid diamond!"

Margaret screamed. She could not say one word.

"Yes," said he, "I believe the whole central portion of the earth is one
great diamond. When it was moving about in its orbit as a comet, the
light of the sun streamed through this diamond and spread an enormous
tail out into space; after a time this [v]nucleus began to burn."

"Burn!" exclaimed Margaret.

"Yes, the diamond is almost pure [v]carbon; why should it not burn? It
burned and burned and burned. Ashes formed upon it and encircled it; it
still burned, and when it was entirely covered with ashes it ceased to
be transparent and ceased to be a comet; it became a planet, and
revolved in a different orbit. It still burned within its covering of
ashes, and these gradually changed to rock, to metal, to everything that
forms the crust of the e