He winked, and tried to nod in the affirmative.  “Were you asleep, father?  Did the shock rouse you?”

He winked again.

“Do you know what we are doing?” Before he could answer the foot of Gazen sounded on the stair.  He had left us with an eager, almost a confident eye.  He came back looking grave in the extreme.

“We are not falling towards Mercury,” he said gloomily. “We are rushing to the sun!”

I cannot depict our emotion at this awful announcement which changed our hopes into despair.  Probably it affected each of us in a different manner.  I cannot recollect my own feelings well enough to analyse them, and suppose I must have been astounded for a time.  A vision of the car, plunging through an atmosphere of flame, into the fiery entrails of the sun, flashed across my excited brain, and then I seemed to lose the power of thought.

“Out of the frying-pan into the fire,” said I at last, in frivolous reaction.

“His will be done!” murmured Miss Carmichael, instinctively drawing closer to her father, who seemed to realise our jeopardy.

“We must look the matter in the face,” said Gazen, with a sigh.

“What a death!” I exclaimed, “to sit and watch the vast glowing furnace that is to swallow us up come nearer and nearer, second after second, minute after minute, hour after hour.”

“The nearer we approach the sun the faster we shall go,” said Gazen.  “For one thing, we shall be dead long before we reach him.  The heat will stifle us.  It will be all over in a few hours.”

What a death!  To see, to feel ourselves roasting as in an oven.  It was too horrible.

“Are you certain there is no mistake?” I asked at length.

“Quite,” replied Gazen.  “Come and see for yourself.”

We had all but gained the door when Miss Carmichael followed us.

“Professor,” she said, with a tremor in her voice, and a look of supplication in her eyes, “you will come back soon—­you will not leave us long.”

“No, my darling—­I beg your pardon,” answered Gazen, obeying the impulse of his heart.  “God knows I would give my life to save you if I could.”

In another instant he had locked her in his arms.

I left them together, and ascended to the observatory, where Gazen soon afterwards rejoined me.

“I’m the happiest man alive,” said he, with a beaming countenance.  “Congratulate me.  I’m betrothed to Miss Carmichael.”

I took his proffered hand, scarcely knowing whether to laugh or cry.

“It seems to me that I have found my life in losing it,” he continued with a grim smile.  “Saturn! what a courtship is ours—­what an engagement—­what a bridal bed!  But there, old fellow, I’m afraid I’m happier than you—­alone in spirit, and separated from her you love.  Perhaps I was wrong to carry you away from Venus—­it has not turned out well—­but I acted for the best.  Forgive me!”