“Would it be impertinent if I asked what your work is?” he asked slowly. “Frank was very much interested in it.”
Randolph cast a swift glance at Buckhart, who was examining the bookshelves at the other end of the room.
“Shall you see Frank soon?” he asked, lowering his voice.
“Probably within a few weeks,” Dick returned. “I’ll drop in on him on my way back to New Haven.”
“Then I will tell you, but you must not write it to him. You must tell it to him only by word of mouth, and then when he is alone. I shall have to ask for your word of honor that you will say nothing to any other living soul of what I am about to confide in you. Will you pledge me this?”
The Yale man did not reply at once. What could be the nature of a work which required such secrecy as this?
“I assure you it is necessary,” Randolph went on in the same low tone. “If the slightest hint of my discovery should leak out, it would precipitate the greatest panic this country—nay, the world—has ever seen.”
Dick gave a slight start. A sudden thought had flashed into his brain. Could it be possible that—— He recovered himself quickly.
“I give you my word, of course,” he said gravely. “I shall say nothing to any one but Frank of what you have to tell me.”
Randolph breathed a sigh of relief as he bent closer to the Yale man. His voice was so low that the latter had to strain his ears to hear.