"Well?" she said, in such a faint whisper that both men started and looked anxiously at her. "Well? Speak!" Robinson threw out both hands with a gesture of despair. "It's worse than I thought!" he answered, huskily. "No use pretending it isn't; it's far worse. We've made as thorough an examination as we could, and it's terrible to see what damage has been done. Work of all this time--many a long month!--all destroyed, in both shafts. They're blocked with wreckage! Brickwork, ironwork, everything's been blown out in both. The downcast's the worst. And--and that's not all!" "What is all?" asked Jeckie. "Say it! I want to know." Robinson glanced at Farnish, and Jeckie was quick to interpret the look. She turned on her father as if he had been a house dog. "Go out!" she commanded. "Outside!--and shut the door. Now then," she demanded as Farnish hurried into the garden and pulled the door tight after him. "Say it straight out! What is--all?" Robinson dropped into a chair and for a moment rested his head on his hands; when he raised it again his face was as white as Jeckie's. "I've been down that down-cast shaft, through the wreckage, as far as I could--Hargreaves and I went down, an hour since," he replied. "You never saw such a sight!--those fellows must have used some explosive that's more powerful than anything we've ever used for ordinary blasting. Those heavy cast-iron plates that we used for that stretch of tubbing, now--twisted and curled as if they'd been sheets of paper--ribs, brackets, flanges--I couldn't have believed that such things could have been, well, just made into ribbons, as if they'd been no more than putty. The timbering and the masonry, of course, are just so much splinters and dust, but the ironwork--well, it beats me how it's happened! Still, in time, all that could be put right--there'd be long delay, to be sure, and awful expense--all would have to be done over again--it's like starting all over again, but----" He paused, shook his head, shivered a little as if at some recollection, and for a moment seemed as if he had lost the thread of his story. "Get on to what there is of the rest of it!" commanded Jeckie. "There's more!" Robinson started; the last word appeared to spur him up. "More!" he exclaimed, almost emphatically. "More? Yes more!--lots more. The worst of it! My God!" "Will you get it out?" said Jeckie, in a low voice that betrayed her concentrated anxiety. "Say it, man. I want to know." Robinson made an effort, and pulled himself together. He gave Jeckie a queer, sidelong glance.