"Me, dear Maston! Do you consider me so bad? Me! To sacrifice your security for your honor. Me! To persuade you to an act which would shame a life consecrated entirely to the highest speculations of pure mathematics." "Bravo, Mrs. Scorbitt! I see in you once more the generous patron of our Society. No, I have never doubted your great heart." "Thank you, Mr. Maston." "In regard to myself," continued Maston, "allow me to say, before telling the point of the earth where our great shooting will take place-sell, so to speak, the secret which I have been able to keep so well, to allow these barbarians to fly and pursue our friends, to interrupt their works, which will make our profit and glory, I would rather die." "Splendid, Mr. Maston!" cried Mrs. Evangelina Scorbitt. And these two beings, united by the same enthusiasm, crazed by it if you will, one as well as the other, were well matched in understanding each other perfectly. "No, they will never know the name of the country which my calculations have designated, and the reputation of which will become immortal," said J.T. Maston. "They can silence me if they like, but they will never have the secret from me." "And they can kill me with you," said Mrs. Evangelina Scorbitt; "I will also be mute." "It is lucky, dear Evangelina, that they are ignorant of your knowledge of the place." "Do you believe that I would be capable of betraying it, because I am only a woman? Betray my associates and you! No, my friend, no. If they should raise the whole city and country against you-if the whole world would come to the door of this cell to take you away, I shall be there, too, and we will at least have one consolation-we will die together." As if there could be any greater consolation and Mr. Maston could dream of a sweeter death than dying in the arms of Mrs. Evangelina Scorbitt! And so ended the conversation every time that this excellent woman visited the prisoner. And when the Inquiry Committee asked her what the result was, she would say: "Nothing as yet; perhaps with time I shall be able to reach my point." Ah, women, women! What are women? "In time," she urged. But time went on with fast steps. Weeks went 'round like days, days like hours and hours like minutes. It was already May. Mrs. Evangelina Scorbitt had not been able to get any information from J.T. Maston, and where she had failed there was no hope of any other person succeeding.