you might not now be able to voice your
complaint--for such seems to be your purpose in coming here." He turned
to Jared, who was standing close by. "Very well, Jared. You may go.
After this, it will be as well to throw the bolts, though in this case I
am quite willing to see the visitor."

Jared slid away, leaving the plump little woman to confront the famous
scientist.

For a moment, Mrs. Baker stared into the pale gray eyes, the pupils of
which seemed black as coal by contrast. Some, his bitter enemies,
claimed that Professor Ramsey Burr looked cold and bleak as an iceberg,
others that he had a baleful glare. His mouth was grim and determined.

* * * * *

Yet, with her woman's eyes, Mrs. Baker, looking at the professor's bony
mask of a face, with the high-bridged, intrepid nose, the passionless
gray eyes, thought that Ramsey Burr would be handsome, if a little less
cadaverous and more human.

"The experiment which you ruined by your untimely entrance," continued
the professor, "was not a safe one."

His long white hand waved toward the bunched apparatus, but to her to
the room seemed all glittering metal coils of snakelike wire, ruddy
copper, dull lead, and tubes of all shapes. Hell cauldrons of unknown
chemicals seethed and slowly bubbled, beetle-black bakelite fixtures
reflected the hideous light.

"Oh," she cried, clasping her hands as though she addressed him in
prayer, "forget your science, Professor Burr, and be a man. Help me.
Three days from now my boy, my son, whom I love above all the world, is
to die."

"Three days is a long time," said Professor Burr calmly. "Do not lose
hope: I have no intention of allowing your son, Allen Baker, to pay the
price for a deed of mine. I freely confess it was I who was responsible
for the death of--what was the person's name?--Smith, I believe."

"It was you who made Allen get poor Mr. Smith to agree to the
experiments which killed him, and which the world blamed on my son," she
said. "They called it the deed of a scientific fiend, Professor Burr,
and perhaps they are right. But Allen is innocent."

"Be quiet," ordered Burr, raising his hand. "Remember, madam, your son
Allen is only a commonplace medical man, and while I taught him a little
from my vast store of knowledge, he was ignorant and of much less value
to science and humanity than myself. Do you not understand, can you not
comprehend, also, that the man Smith was a martyr