ly occasionally addressed a remark to one
or another of the party, except during meals. At those periods of
general recuperation, he talked easily and well upon many topics. There
was no animosity in his bearing nor did he seem to perceive any directed
toward himself, but when any of the others ventured to infringe upon his
ideas of how discipline should be maintained, DuQuesne's reproof was
merciless. Dorothy almost liked him, but Margaret insisted that she
considered him worse than ever.

When the bar was exhausted, DuQuesne lifted the sole remaining cylinder
into place.

"We should be nearly stationary with respect to the earth," he remarked.
"Now we will start back."

"Why, it felt as though we were picking up speed for the last three
days!" exclaimed Margaret.

"Yes, it feels that way because we have nothing to judge by. Slowing
down in one direction feels exactly like starting up in the opposite
one. There is no means of knowing whether we are standing still, going
away from the earth, or going toward it, since we have nothing
stationary upon which to make observations. However, since the two bars
were of exactly the same size and were exerted in opposite directions
except for a few minutes after we left the earth, we are nearly
stationary now. I will put on power until this bar is something less
than half gone, then coast for three or four days. By the end of that
time we should be able to recognize our solar system from the appearance
of the fixed stars."

He again advanced the lever, and for many hours silence filled the car
as it hurtled through space. DuQuesne, waking up from a long nap, saw
that the bar no longer pointed directly toward the top of the ship,
perpendicular to the floor, but was inclined at a sharp angle. He
reduced the current, and felt the lurch of the car as it swung around
the bar, increasing the angle many degrees. He measured the angle
carefully and peered out of all the windows on one side of the car.
Returning to the bar after a time, he again measured the angle, and
found that it had increased greatly.

"What's the matter, Doctor DuQuesne?" asked Dorothy, who had also been
asleep.

"We are being deflected from our course. You see the bar doesn't point
straight up any more? Of course the direction of the bar hasn't changed,
the car has swung around it."

"What does that mean?"

"We have come close enough to some star so that its attraction swings
the bottom of the car aroun