When he descended, it was to find Alleyne in the drawing-room with his sister. Glynne was entertaining them, for Sir John had, on leaving his brother, gone down into the cellar for the special bottle of port, and, after its selection, found so much satisfaction in the mildewy, sawdusty, damp-smelling place that he stopped for some twenty minutes, poking his bedroom candlestick into dark corners and archways where the bottoms of bottles could be seen resting as they had rested for many years past--each bin having a little history of its own, so full of recollections that the baronet had at last to drag himself away, and hurry up to dress. Rolph was also late--so much so that he had encountered Sir John on the stairs, and the party in the drawing-room had a good quarter of an hour's chat in the twilight, before the candles were lit. "And you think it possible that it is caused by another planet?" Glynne was saying as the major entered the room; and he paused for a moment or two noting the change that had come over his niece. There was an eager look in her eyes; her face was more animated as she sat in the window catching the last reflections of the western glow, listening the while to Alleyne, who, with his back to the light, was talking in a low, deep voice of some problem in his favourite pursuit. "Yes; just as happened over Neptune. That appears to be the only solution of the difficulty," he replied. "Then why not direct your glass exactly at the place where you feel this planet must be?" Alleyne smiled as he spoke next. "I did not explain to you," he said, "that if such a planet does exist it must be, comparatively, very small, and so surrounded by the intense light of the sun that no glass we have yet made would render it visible." "How strange!" said Glynne, thoughtfully; and her eyes vaguely wandered over the evening sky, and then back to rest in a rapt, dreamy way upon the quiet, absorbed face of the visitor. "I was looking at Jupiter last night," she said, suddenly, "trying to see his moons." "Yes?" "But our glass is not sufficiently powerful. I could only distinguish two." "Perhaps it was not the fault of your glass," said Alleyne, smiling. "A glass of a very low power will show them. I have often watched them through a good binocular." "I'm afraid ours is a very bad one," said Glynne. "No, I should be more disposed to think it a good one, Miss Day. The reason you did not see them is this; one was eclipsed by the planet--in other words, behind it--while the others are passing across its body, whose brightness almost hides them--in fact, does hide them to such an extent that they would not be seen by you." There was a few minutes' silence here, broken at last by Glynne, as she said in a low, thoughtful voice,-- "How much you know. How grand it must be." Alleyne laughed softly before replying.