Two on a Tower

astronomical phenomena on the Rings-Hill column; but she had not gone there. This evening she sat at a window, the blind of which had not been drawn down. Her elbow rested on a little

th the young astronomer, and to her promise to honour him with a visit for learning some secrets about the scintillating bodies overhead. The curious juxtaposition of youthful ardour and old despair that she had found in the lad would have made him interesting to a woman of perception, apart from his fair hair and early-Christian face. But such is the heightening touch of memory that his beauty was probably richer in her imagination than in the real. It was a moot point to consider whether the temptations that would be brought to bear upon him in his

t, so did the fact of her having got so far influence her to go further. A person who had casually observed her gait would have thought it irregular; and the lessenings and increasings of speed with which she proceeded in the direction of the pillar could be accounted

a shadowy finger pointing to the upper constellations. There was no wind, in a human sense; but a steady stertorous breathing from the fir

t had led Lady Constantine thus far, and hence she made no ado about admitting herself. Three years ago, when her every act

a scroll of paper which lay on the little table beside him. The small lantern that illuminated it showed

the paper, and saw figures and signs. When he had j

g to-night?' she s

he faint lamp-light was suffic

without betraying much surprise. 'Doing my best

e heavens if I could come on a

piter, and exhibited to her the glory of that orb. Then he

ink of streams of satellites or meteors racing round and round the planet like a fly-wheel, so close together as to seem solid ma

that, though I am interested in the stars, they were not what I came to see you about. . . . I fi

ave heard her. At all events, abstracted by his

nd secondary planets quite behind us in our flight, as a bird might leave its bush and sweep int

star, though it only seemed a

ro. Though called a fixed star, it is, like all fixed stars, moving with inconce

on about Sirius, and

n the

beasts, and f

like Indian

stock the co

stars she thought were visi

sky that their high position unfolded. 'Oh, thou

ow, how many do you think are brought withi

n't g

de for, they were not made to please our eyes. It is

d, with almost maternal solicitude. 'I think astronomy is a bad s

study to be one almost tragic in its quality, I hope to be the new Copern

em; from the solar system to a star in the Swan, the nearest fixed star in the northern sky; from the star in the Swan to remoter stars;

oint,' said the youth. 'When, just now, we had reached a planet whose remoteness is a hundred times the remoteness of the

t without seriousness. 'It makes me feel that it is

spaces just once, think how it must annihilate me to be, as

I came to see you upon, Mr. St. Cleeve,' she b

ning, Lady

this moment. Let us finish this gr

ly interested in his. Or a certain youthful pride that he evidenced at being the elucidator of such a large them

er use of the word 'grand' as de

s from horizon to horizon of our earth is grand, simply grand, and I wish I ha

riends, the stars,' she

irst, that horrid monsters lie up there waiting to be discovered by any moderately

sters may

ce, at those pieces of darkness in the Milky Way,' he went on, pointing with his finger to where the galaxy stretched across over their heads with the luminousness of a frosted web. 'You see that dark opening in it near the Swan? There is a still more remarkable one south of the equator, called the Coal Sack, as a so

ine was heedf

own the immeasurable to human comprehension! By figures of speech and apt comparisons he took her mind into leading-s

ther on, a size at which awfulness begins; further on, a size at which ghastliness begins. That size faintly approaches the size of the stellar universe. So am I not ri

erse, under the very eyes of the constellations, Lady Const

. You see that dying one in the body of the Greater Bear? Two centuries ago it was as bright as the others. The senses may become terrified by plunging among them as they are, but there is a pitifulness even in their glory. Imagine them all extinguished, and your mind feeling

altogether

ance of everything. So that the science is still terrible, even as a panacea. It is quite impossible to think at all adequately of the sky - of what the sky substantially is, without feeling it as a juxtaposed night

nd turned to him with so

letely crushed my subject out of me! Yours is celestial; mine

ant?' he inquired, at last attracted by her manner; for he began to perceiv

t as personal trou

endeavours lent him a personal force and charm which she could not but apprehend. In the presence of the immensities that his young mind had, as it were, brought down from above to hers,

arge you with,' she resumed, smiling. 'I

out through the trees

r, they threaded the firs and crossed the ploughed field. By an

hat medium-sized star you see over there, low down in the south, is

so!' she answered. 'You have broached for

matter?' he sai

ittle laugh, 'I will endeavour to sink down to such ephemeral trivialities as human tragedy, and explain, since I have come. The point is, I want a helper: no woman ever wanted one more. For days I have wanted a trusty friend

ically, Lady

hand upon

s respect for her as the lady of the manor, there was the admira

t my agent should have known Sir Blount Constantine well by sight when he was at home. For

ed sorry t

last moment that he wouldn't do. I have come to you because I think you will do. This is it: my husband has led me and all the world to believe that he is in Africa, hunting lio

the end of the world for yo

bu

an I l

y n

detected a periodicity in its so-called irregularities which, if proved, would add some very valuable facts to those known on this subject, one of the most interesting, perplexing, and suggestive in the whole field

always so sel

if I leave now!' returned the youth, greatly

have asked you, pray. I have

do this - watch the star for me while I am gone? I

be much

evening about nine. If the sky were not clear, then you would have

elescope be brou

shook

uy an equatorial, and I have been obliged to rig up an apparatus of my own devising, so as to make it i

olly playful. 'You are the most ungallant youth I ever met with; but I suppose

prefer to keep my pur

ered, quite overborne

morning observation, if

given

wn insignificance which made these alternations of mood possible. 'I will go anywhere - do anything for you - this mo

down upon their two persons through the trees, as if those two persons could bear some sort of comparison with them. On

an you

said

shall go up by the nigh