Ruth was in earnest when she told Cyrus of her intention to become a nurse. Some experience in that line, while in Europe, had fitted her for the work and she found little difficulty in securing a position in a Worcester Hospital. Possibly her prepossessing appearance was a help. The Superintendent, being human, was not immune, perhaps, to the influence of an interesting personality, especially in combination with an attractive face and voice and figure.

After this interview at the hospital, about the middle of the day, she took a return train for Springfield.

When she entered the car at the Worcester Station, and found a vacant seat, she gave no special attention to the two men in the seat just behind her own. She merely noticed that the carefully dressed young man nearest the aisle had an intelligent wide awake face, and that his companion—next the window—was suffering from a cold in the head of aggravated dimensions. His aqueous eyes and swollen nose, his sneezes and his busy handkerchief told the familiar and unromantic drama of a mucous membrane at war with its owner.

The weather this day—a week or so after the interview with Cyrus—was cloudy, damp and otherwise depressing. She felt, of course, gratification in the success of her mission at the hospital. Her thoughts, however, were not entirely rosy as she looked from the car window on this homeward journey, gazing absently on the sunless landscape. She had much to think about, and often, during this little journey from Worcester she tried vainly to escape from unwelcome memories. At the mention of a familiar name, however, these wandering thoughts were centered suddenly on the conversation of the two men in the seat behind her.

"Alton, Cyrus Alton. Guess you've met him."

"Yez, I thig zo. Kide of sleeby eyes, hasn'd he?"

"Yep. His eyes are sleepy, but, gee whiz! He does things."

"Whad thigs?"

"Oh, anything—if it's impossible."

"Didn'd he bake a lod of bunny all of a zudden?"

"Bet your life he did! Made it while you wait."

"How budge?"

"God knows."

"How did he do id?"

"God knows that too:—He and Alton. You can hear anything. Some say a rich widow, others, a pirate's cave. Perhaps it's just a friendly tip from his Partner."

"Who is his bardner?"

"The Almighty."

"You bead he is bious?"

"Nixy not! He's a scientist, and science and piety don't seem to cuddle much. He has discovered—or his Big Partner has told him—some secret of electricity that is just the humpingest thing out of jail. It's going to revolutionize the whole human outfit; business, travel, transportation. As to little things like manufactures in peace and wholesale destruction in war, why, we've got to begin all over again. You just can't digest it. And it's so simple that you laugh when you think of it."

"Doe! Really?"

"Yep; that's no exaggeration."

"Thad's inderesdig. I have heard vague rubers aboud id bud nothing like thad. Just whad is id?"

"Just what is it. Well, that's an easy question to ask. When he blabs his secret then we'll all know. But he says it's so simple that it's sure to be discovered some day."

"I spoze you doe him breddy well."

"Yep, in a way. He orders his electric stuff through us. A year ago when he was so poor he used to foot it to save trolley fare the boss trusted him for twelve hundreds dollars' worth of radium."

"Good for the boss! He was a zpord. Did he ever get his bunny bag?"

"Twice over. Oh, Alton didn't forget it. He's as straight as a string."

"Well, he bay be all ride in sub ways bud he busd be jusd aboud grazy to sdard on thad jourdy."

"Oh, I dunno. He has done some big stunts already. And he's pretty level headed."

"Yez, bud id seebs like suizide to be. How var away is Bars, eddyway?"

"Oh, just a step. I believe the astronomers call it about forty-eight millions of miles."

"Vorty-eight billions of biles? Whew!"

"No, forty-eight millions—not billions."

The Rose Cold tried to laugh. "Yez I doe id iz—but with thiz invernal drouble I gan'd prodounce by ebs."

"Of course; beg your pardon."

"Thad's all ride. But dell be, is he really goig to dry vor id?"

"Sure thing. He may have started already."

Here both men noticed in a careless way, a movement of the shoulders of the girl in front of them when a hand went nervously to her face. And it so happened that the Rose Cold's next words were the expression of her own thoughts when he said:

"The bad's a vool!"

"No," said the younger man; "he's not a fool. He has done a lot of figuring over it,—and experimenting. You see his machine is too good to be true. It can shoot through space at the same rate as electric waves, or waves of light."

"And how vasd is thad?"

"About a hundred and eighty thousand miles a second."

"Doe!"

"Yep."

"And you really believe id?"

"Sure."

"Id's sibly imbossible."

"I don't blame you for thinking so. But that's just why Alton likes it. If it was possible it wouldn't interest him. Miracles are his daily food. Gad, he's a wonder!"

"A hundred and eighty thouzand biles a zegond! Doe—thad's doo buch vor bee."

"No wonder you don't believe it. It surely is going some. Beats oxen."

"Aboud how log would id taig him to ged there ad thad rade?"

Here came a silence while the younger man did some figuring. "About five seconds. But of course no human being, even in an air-tight cylinder, could keep his head—or anything else, at that rate. He allows about twelve hours to get there."

"Dwelve hours! Vorty-eight billion biles in twelve hours! Why zo zlow?"

"Well, he's got to go slow through the six or seven miles of our atmosphere. Then, he doesn't know what sort of atmosphere surrounds Mars. So that'll take time like entering an unknown harbor. To be really safe he'll have to jog along slowly—on an average of four or five million miles an hour."

The Rose Cold laughed. "Beads vairy dales, doesn'd id?"

"To a frazzle."

"But the bravesd bad in the world gan'd go all day withoud breathig."

"True enough. But Alton has the same system of oxygen cylinders as the U-boats—only better. More condensed and lasts longer. Uses same air more times without deteriorating."

"Well, whadever habbens, he busd be glever."

"Clever! He beats the devil."

"Will he ever gum bag, Jibby?"

"Dunno."

"I subbose the gradest danger is in being hid by a medeoride. I understand those rogs are always shoodig about in spaze."

"Yep; and all the way in size from a liver pill to a state house. But that isn't what'll knock him out."

"Berhabs dod, bud I shouldn'd gare do be there iv one habbened to hid him."

"Right you are. He'd have about as much show as a bottle of ginger ale colliding with a locomotive. But astronomers say they are not so very numerous. What he's most afraid of himself is some sudden electric disturbance in his own machine that will put his own nervous system out of commission. You see nobody really knows what is going on in space. And if his nerves or lungs or brain go back on him, in anyway—Ping!—he's a goner."

After a pause the Rose Cold spoke in a more serious tone.

"Well, I taig off my had to him. It's a big thig, thad zord of gourage."

"I should say! And he knows himself there isn't one chance in a hundred of his ever touching this little earth again."

Here the attention of both men was drawn to the girl in front of them, who suddenly started from her seat—with both hands pressed hard against her face. She stood for a moment as if in pain, or under some mental disturbance. Then, sinking back into her seat, she appeared to be looking quietly out of the window during the short remainder of the journey. Although her action caused them no further interest, nor curiosity, it served to divert their talk from Cyrus Alton—a subject apparently exhausted—to other matters of no interest to Ruth Heywood.