actly where it had
pointed, but I knew that, along the line I had drawn, an explosion must
have occurred, and could only hope that it had not been a serious one,
which it seems it was. I waited and waited, hardly daring to leave my
attic, but hearing no news of any disaster, I was torn between the
anxiety that would naturally come to any humane man in my position
who did not wish to destroy life, and the fear that, if nothing had
occurred, I had not actually made the discovery I thought I had made.
You spoke of my actions being childish; but when I realized that I had
myself been the cause of the explosion, a fear of criminal prosecution
came over me. Not that I should object to imprisonment if they would
allow me to continue my experiments; but that, doubtless, they would not
do, for the authorities know nothing of science, and care less."

In spite of her initial scepticism, Jennie found herself gradually
coming to believe in the efficiency of the harmless-looking mechanism of
glass and iron which she saw on the table before her, and a sensation of
horror held her spellbound as she gazed at it. Its awful possibilities
began slowly to develop in her mind, and she asked breathlessly,--"What
would happen if you were to turn that machine and point it towards the
centre of the earth?"

"I told you what would happen. Vienna would lie in ruins, and possibly
the whole Austrian Empire, and perhaps some adjoining countries would
become a mass of impalpable dust. It may be that the world itself would
dissolve. I cannot tell what the magnitude of the result might be, for
I have not dared to risk the experiment."

"Oh, this is too frightful to think about," she cried. "You must destroy
the machine, Professor, and you must never make another."

"What! And give up the hope that my name will descend to posterity?"

"Professor Seigfried, when once this machine becomes known to the world,
there will be no posterity for your name to descend to. With the present
hatred of nation against nation, with different countries full of those
unimprisoned maniacs whom we call Jingoes--men preaching the hatred of
one people against another--how long do you think the world will last
when once such knowledge is abroad in it?"

The Professor looked longingly at the machine he had so slowly and
painfully constructed.

"It would be of much use to humanity if it were but benevolently
employed. With the coal fields everywhere diminishing, it would