Mr. Franklin glanced from one to another in alarm. He saw that he was treading upon uncertain ground, and he wisely held his peace. After a brief and awkward pause, Mr. Belford rose, and pleading the calls of business, went out, and the unhappy interview came to an end. * * * * * It was a strange room. Its belongings stranger still. A large square chamber, with windows on three sides and a door and a fireplace on the other. Just now the fireplace had fallen from its high estate and had become a catch-all for the wrecks of much unpacking. There was a small single bed, two chairs, and an indefinite number of tables. Impossible to say how many, for they were half obscured by numberless things scientific: microscopes, a retort, small furnace, two cameras, galvanic battery, coils of wire and rubber tubing, magic lantern, books, photographs, and papers; on a small desk a confused pile of papers; on the walls a great number of pictures and photographs. The very den of a student of science. Hardly room to walk among the wilderness of traps, boxes, and trunks. At the window, the young man, just dressed, and taking a view of the mill and its new chimney. "Gad! how mad the fellow was over my little measurements. Wonder what it all means? The girl's in trouble, the father has a grief, and the clerk--I can make nothing of him. What matter? My duty is with my books, that I may pursue pure science. The moment things become practical I drop 'em." Then he turned and looked out of the next window. "Fine view of the river. I must have another try at it with the camera." He crossed the room, and standing in the bright morning sunshine, he looked about to examine the other L that had been thrown out from the back of the main building. "That's Alma's room, and the next is the clerk's, the chimney man. The window is open, and the place looks as dark as a cave. I've a mind to light it up." So saying he took a small hand mirror from a table near by. Holding it in the full sunlight, he moved it slowly about till the dancing spot of reflected light fell upon the open window and leaped in upon the opposite wall of the room. The observer with steady hand moved the spot of light about till he had probed the room, and found all it contained, which was nothing save a bed and two chairs. "Applied science reports the man is fit for treason, spoils, and that sort of thing. He has no pictures. His room is a sleeping den. The man is a----Hallo! Steady there!" The door in the room opened, and the student of applied science turned quickly away with his back to the wall beside his window. Cautiously raising the mirror, he held it near the window in such a way that in it he could see all that went on in the other room, without being himself seen.