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84   remarkable albedo—placed by Muller at ninety-two per cent!

The X in the phenomenon, there can be little doubt, must lie hidden in some peculiar composition, or perhaps unknown constituent, of the atmosphere.

But an end to speculation, or this (awful thought) will read like a scientific treatise, instead of what it is-a narrative of unparalleled but sober fact.

The Hornet continued on, drawing northward as well as in toward the surface. At length—we were then but a thousand miles or so up—the midday point was attained, and then it was that our descent into the Venusian world began.

We had issued at last from the terrible depths of space: but what awaited us in these other deeps-these deeps into which we were now descending?

''Astounding Things Happen in the Second Installment of this Fascinating Novel. You Will Find the Second Installment in the Next Issue of''

but to his mystification he found none. He groped for the revolver. All its chambers were loaded.

He gave a quick sigh of relief, and then, without a moment's hesitation, he carried Norman's body back to the study and placed it in the chair in front of the fireplace. Next he replaced the pistol in the drawer of the desk where he had seen it the day before. There were several things that Anne and the public would never know. Leaving the door of the secret chamber slightly ajar he pushed the bookcase against it so that it was hidden altogether.

As he reached for the telephone to call the authorities, he saw an envelope lying on the desk addressed in Norman's big, bold handwriting. It bore Wayland's name. He tore it open hastily and read:

So after all Dick had meant to take his own life, but the grim spectre Death had stalked in and reaped the harvest in his own way. Wayland glanced toward the hidden door and shuddered involuntarily. He would keep Anne in her room until every detail of that den of horrors was a thing of the past.

He took up the telephone and calmly called the coroner's number.



 and carrying it into the library for that one night, then taking it out again before morning. That must have been their last card. I wonder how they knew John would come out of his room before morning?"

Again her husband spoke:

"I've thought of that. Probably they intended to raise an alarm of some kind that would bring me out—some devilish noise, perhaps. Or maybe Mrs. Murdock would have screamed, then pretended she saw nothing—just as Jarvins pretended, when he and I were looking together at the figure. But I heard their footsteps and came out. They must have been standing near me in the darkness at the time. Instead of going crazy on the spot, I fainted."

The doctor, prominent among the guests, nodded gravely.

"Some temperaments go mad when they reach the breaking-point; others faint."

"I'm glad you're the fainting kind, John," Mary smiled into his face, still pale and nervous. "It would have been awfully inconvenient to have you go crazy, just before our wedding day."

"But for you, I might have gone crazy," he assured her; but she laughingly negatived the suggestion.

"I didn't get into it till the excitement was nearly over. Their scheme had failed by that time. In spite of everything, you were still sane. You bore the brunt of it, yourself."

"Still, I don't see how you ever had the courage to go right up to the—the thing," one of the girls objected, admiringly.

Mary Bamber's quiet laugh overflowed into a reminiscent ripple.

"I never should have had it if the converter had not flared up," she admitted, candidly. "I knew then that the 'thing' wasn't a ghost. Ghosts don't throw shadows—at least, I have always heard that they don't. Wax figures do!" 

Below the clock struck the hour of twelve.

There was a loud, painful buzzing in my head.

Then the spell seemed to fall from me, and as the great fangs of the thing groped for my throat I gave a loud cry and hurled myself with the blind madness of despair at the foul, hairy shape, falling to the carpeted floor locked in that relentless embrace.

I have but a hazy recollection of what occurred next—it seemed that I was mad. I struggled and kicked frantically in my futile efforts to avoid those fearsome fangs that were gripping my bared throat. Perhaps I screamed

I faintly remember my outstretched hand touching something that was cold—solid, and a sharp, thrilling sense of exultation passed through me as I rained wild blows, sickening, crunching blows, on the hideous, grinning head A loathsome, putrid mass oozed out the hairy legs slackened and grew rigid My madness spent, I rolled over on the floor

My stomach revolted. I was nauseated, sickened I swooned

They found me lying apparently lifeless on the floor, and firmly grasped in my hand a heavy iron poker.

Close by, its diamond eyes crushed to powder and battered almost beyond recognition lay the Golden Spider!

A BEQUEST of $400,000 has been made to Stanford university, San Francisco, for the study of spiritualism, according to a recent announcement. This gives the spiritualism and psychology departments a fund of more than $600,000, all derived from the estate of the late Thomas Welton Stanford of Melbourne, Australia, a brother of Senator Leland Stanford. The chair was originally founded by Thomas Welton, for many years a leading spiritualist. Trustees of the university accepted his first donation of $50,000 only on the understanding that investigations along "spirit" lines would be untrammeled, regardless of whether the case for or against spiritualism was shown to be true.

To date, Prof. John Edgar Coover, fellow in psychic phenomena, has been unable to find any scientific truth in the contentions of such eminent spiritualists as Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, that communication with the dead is possible.