“Can’t make it,” he said.  “Get a step-ladder.  Strange!”

With the ladder it was easy.  He plucked it off the ceiling.  We pressed about the table.  The chemist turned it about with his fingers.

“I wonder,” he was saying.  “It’s a gem.  Apparently.  You say it has no gravity.  It can’t be.  Whoop!” He let it slip out of his fingers.  Again it popped on its way to the ceiling.  He caught it with a deft movement of his hand.  “The devil!  Did you ever see!  And a solid!  Who owns this?”

That brought it back to me.  I explained what I could of the manner of my possession.

“I see.  Very interesting.  Something I’ve never seen—­and—­frankly—­ something strictly against what I’ve been taught.  Nevertheless, it’s not impossible.  We are witnesses at least.  Would you care if I take this over to the laboratory?”

It was a new complication.  If it were not a jewel there was a chance of its being damaged.  I was as anxious as he; but I had been warned as to its possession.

“I shan’t harm it.  I’ll see to that.  I have suspicions and I’d like to verify them.  A chemist doesn’t blunder across such a thing every day.  I am a chemist.”  His eyes glistened.

“Your suspicions?” I asked.

“A new element.”

This gem.  A new element.  Perhaps that would explain the Blind Spot.  It was not exactly of earth.  Everything had confirmed it.

“You—­A new element?  How do you account for it?  It defies your laws.  Most of your elements are evolved through tedious process.  This is picked up by chance.”

“That is so.  But there are still a thousand ways.  A meteor, perhaps; a bit of cosmic dust—­there are many shattered comets.  Our chemistry is earthly.  There are undoubtedly new elements that we don’t know of.  Perhaps in enormous proportion.”

I let him have it.  It was the only night I had been away from the ring.  I may say that it is the only time I have been free from its isolation.

When I called at his office next day I found he had merely confirmed his suspicions.  It defied analysis; there was no reaction.  Under all tests it was a stranger.  The whole science that had been built up to explain everything had here explained nothing.  However there was one thing that he had uncovered—­heat.  Perhaps I should say magnetism.  It was cold to man.  I have spoken about the icy blue of its colour.  It was cold even to look at.  The chemist placed it in my hand.

“Is it not so?”

It was.  The minute it touched my palm I could sense the weird horror of the isolation; the stone was cold.  Just like a piece of ice.

This was the first time I had ever had it in direct contact with the flesh.  Set in the ring its impulse had always been secondary.

“You notice it?  It is so with me.  Now then.  Just a minute.”

He pressed a button.  A young lady answered his ring; she glanced first at myself and then at the chemist.