He stood by her while she observed; she by him when they changed places.

Once that Swithin's emancipation from a trammelling body had been

effected by the telescope, and he was well away in space, she felt her

influence over him diminishing to nothing. He was quite unconscious of

his terrestrial neighbourings, and of herself as one of them. It still

further reduced her towards unvarnished simplicity in her manner to him.

The silence was broken only by the ticking of the clock-work which gave

diurnal motion to the instrument. The stars moved on, the end of the

telescope followed, but their tongues stood still. To expect that he was

ever voluntarily going to end the pause by speech was apparently futile.

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She laid her hand upon his arm.

He started, withdrew his eye from the telescope, and brought himself back

to the earth by a visible--almost painful--effort.

'Do come out of it,' she coaxed, with a softness in her voice which any

man but unpractised Swithin would have felt to be exquisite. 'I feel

that I have been so foolish as to put in your hands an instrument to

effect my own annihilation. Not a word have you spoken for the last ten

minutes.' 'I have been mentally getting on with my great theory. I hope soon to be

able to publish it to the world. What, are you going? I will walk with

you, Lady Constantine. When will you come again?' 'When your great theory is published to the world.'




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