“I am successful,” he answered. “I have discovered everything!”
Mr. Bryce came forward.
“I will speak to you all very soon,” said Clewe. “I can't tell you anything now. Margaret, let us go. I shall want to talk to you directly, but not until I have been to my office. I will meet you at your house in a very few minutes.” And with that he left the building and fairly ran to his office.
A quarter of an hour later Roland entered Margaret's library, where she sat awaiting him. He carefully closed the doors and windows. They sat side by side upon the sofa.
“Now, Roland,” she said, “I cannot wait one second longer. What is it that you have discovered?”
“Margaret,” said he, “I am afraid you will have to wait a good many seconds. If I were to tell you directly what I have discovered, you would not understand it. I am the possessor of wonderful facts, but I believe also that I am the master of a theory more wonderful. The facts I found out when I got to the bottom of the shaft, but the theory I worked out coming up.”
“But give them to me quickly!” she cried. “The facts first—I can wait for the theory.”
“No,” he said, “I cannot do it; I must tell you the whole thing as I have it, arranged in my mind. Now, in the first place, you must understand that this earth was once a comet.”
“Oh, bother your astronomy, I really can't understand it! What did you find in the bottom of that hole?”
“You must listen to me,” he said. “You cannot comprehend a thing I say if I do not give it to you in the proper order. There have been a great many theories about comets, but there is only one of them in which I have placed any belief. You know that as a comet passes around the sun, its tail is always pointed away from the sun, so that no matter how rapidly the head shall be moving in its orbit, the end of the tail—in order to keep its position—must move with a rapidity impossible to conceive. If this tail were composed of nebulous mist, or anything of that sort, it could not keep its position. There is only one theory which could account for this position, and that is that the head of a comet is a lens and the tail is light. The light of the sun passes through the lens and streams out into space, forming the tail, which does not follow the comet in the inconceivable manner generally supposed, but is constantly renewed, always, of course; stretching away from the sun!”