To test this new development of the famous sound deflector and perfect its details, scores of experiments were needed, most of which he and she carried out together. This was their plan. One of them established him or herself in the ruined building known as the Dead Church, while the other took up a position in the Abbey workshop. From these respective points, a distance of about two miles, they tested the machines with results that day by day grew better and clearer, till at length, under these conditions they were almost perfect. Strange was the experience and great the triumph when at last Morris, seated in the Abbey with his apparatus before him, unconnected with its twin by any visible medium, was able without interruption for a whole morning to converse with Stella established in the Dead Church. “It is done,” he cried in unusual exultation. “Now, if I die to-morrow it does not matter.” Instantly came the answer in Stella’s voice. “I am very happy. If I do nothing else I have helped a man to fame.” Then a hitch arose, the inevitable hitch; it was found that, in certain states of the atmosphere, and sometimes at fixed hours of the day, the sounds coming from the receiver were almost inaudible. At other times again the motive force seemed to be so extraordinarily active that, the sound deflector notwithstanding, the instrument captured and transmitted a thousand noises which are not to be heard by the unobservant listener, or in some cases by any human ear. Weird enough these noises were at times. Like great sighs they came, like the moan of the breeze brought from an infinite distance, like mutterings and groanings arisen from the very bowels of the earth. Then there were the splash or boom of the waves, the piping of the sea-wind, the cry of curlew, or black-backed gulls, all mingled in one great and tangled skein of sound that choked the voice of the speaker, and in their aggregate, bewildered him who hearkened. These, and others which need not be detailed, were problems that had to be met, necessitating many more experiments. Thus it came about that through most of the short hours of winter daylight Morris and Stella found themselves at their respective positions, corresponding, or trying to correspond, through the aerophones. If the weather was very bad, or very cold, Morris went to the dead Church, otherwise that post was allotted to Stella, both because it was more convenient that Morris should stay in his laboratory, and by her own choice.