r
startling detail of candles which did duty on every side in place of
gas.

As Violet recalled the reason for this the fascination of the past
seized upon her imagination. There was no knowing where this might have
carried her, had not the feverish gleam in Miss Digby's eyes warned her
that the present held its own excitement. Instantly, she was all
attention and listening with undivided mind to that lady's disclosures.

They were brief and to the following effect:

The dinner which had brought some half-dozen people together in this
house had been given in celebration of her impending marriage. But it
was also in a way meant as a compliment to one of the other guests, a
Mr. Spielhagen, who, during the week, had succeeded in demonstrating to
a few experts the value of a discovery he had made which would transform
a great industry.

In speaking of this discovery, Miss Digby did not go into particulars,
the whole matter being far beyond her understanding; but in stating its
value she openly acknowledged that it was in the line of Mr. Cornell's
own work, and one which involved calculations and a formula which, if
prematurely disclosed, would invalidate the contract Mr. Spielhagen
hoped to make, and thus destroy his present hopes.

Of this formula but two copies existed. One was locked up in a
safe-deposit vault in Boston, the other he had brought into the house on
his person, and it was the latter which was now missing, it having been
abstracted during the evening from a manuscript of sixteen or more
sheets, under circumstances which he would now endeavour to relate.

Mr. Van Broecklyn, their host, had in his melancholy life but one
interest which could be called at all absorbing. This was for
explosives. As a consequence, much of the talk at the dinner-table had
been on Mr. Spielhagen's discovery, and the possible changes it might
introduce into this especial industry. As these, worked out from a
formula kept secret from the trade, could not but affect greatly Mr.
Cornell's interests, she found herself listening intently, when Mr. Van
Broecklyn, with an apology for his interference, ventured to remark that
if Mr. Spielhagen had made a valuable discovery in this line, so had he,
and one which he had substantiated by many experiments. It was not a
marketable one, such as Mr. Spielhagen's was, but in his work upon the
same, and in the tests which he had been led to make, he had discovered
certain instances he would g