It was the month of April. In two months and a half the Sun would halt at the solstice on the Tropic of Cancer and retrograde towards the Tropic of Capricorn. Three months later he would cross the Equator at the autumnal equinox. And with that would finish the seasons that for millions of ages had alternated with such regularity in every terrestrial year. For the last time the spheroid would submit to the inequality of its days and nights. For the future the number of hours between sunrise and sunset would be equal all over the globe. In truth it was a magnificent work! J. T. Maston forgot all about the Polar coal-field in contemplating the cosmographical consequences of his labours. The principal object of the Association had been forgotten in the transformations the face of the earth would undergo—notwithstanding that the earth did not care about these magnificent transformations. J. T. Maston, alone and defenceless in his cell, resisted every pressure brought to bear on him. The members of the Commission of Inquiry visited him daily, and obtained nothing. It occurred at last to John Prestice to make use of an influence that might succeed better than his—that of Mrs. Scorbitt. No one was ignorant of the lengths to which the widow would go when the celebrated calculator was in peril. There was a meeting of the Commission, and Mrs. Scorbitt was authorized to visit the prisoner as often as she thought fit. Was not she threatened with the danger from the recoil of the monster cannon as much as any other of the world’s inhabitants? Would her New Park mansion escape the final catastrophe any more than the wigwam of the poor Indian or the humble hut of the backwoodsman? Was not her life as much in danger as that of the obscurest Samoyed or South Sea Islander? The president of the Commission elaborately explained this to her, and suggested that she should bring her influence to bear for the general good. If she could only get J. T. Maston to state where Barbicane and Nicholl had gone, there would still be time to pursue them and save humanity from the impending fate. And so Mrs. Scorbitt had access to the gaol. What she desired above all was to see J. T. Maston, who had been torn by the police from the comforts of his cottage. Let it not be supposed that the heroic Evangelina was a slave to human weakness. And if, on the 9th of April, some indiscreet ear had been applied to the keyhole the first time that the widow appeared in the cell, this is what would have met it,— “At last, dear Maston, I see you again!” “You, Mrs. Scorbitt!” “Yes, my friend, after four weeks, four long weeks of separation—” “Exactly twenty-eight days, five hours, forty-five minutes,” said Maston, looking at his watch. “At last we meet!” “But why, Mrs. Scorbitt? Why have they allowed you to come here?” “To use whatever influence a boundless admiration may have on him who is its object!”