silence.
“No. It’s not for myself that I fear danger, but for you. Won’t you defer your trip?” I persisted.
“Now see here, Ellen,” John responded with a show of irritation, “I’ve already bought my ticket and laid my plans for meeting Hopkins in Atlanta on Friday and I can’t and won’t stop because of some fool notion of yours. I had supposed you had forgotten about this fourth dimension time-cycle business!” He picked up his satchel. “But whether you’ve forgotten it or not, the 8:15 sees me ensconced on my way to Georgia.”
“But, John dear,” I cried in desperation, “remember the Maxwell affair. If I had only obeyed my impulse to rush out and warn poor Mrs. Maxwell, she would be living now!”
John paused and looked at me as if considering, but it was only for a second; then he resumed his descent of the stairs.
“No,” he said, “I’ve got to be in Atlanta on Friday or stand a chance of losing one of the biggest orders we’ve had in months.”
Then it seemed as though something snapped in my brain and I heard my voice as though it were another’s coming from a distance, “The Juggernaut, Fate, grinds mortals beneath its wheels and there is no hope.”
I soon became conscious of the fact that I was sobbing hysterically and that John was holding me in his arms.
“Ellen, Ellen,” his dear voice was saying. “I’m going to fool Fate a trick and let Hopkins wait. I leave tomorrow at 11:53. Let’s see what’s on the radio for the rest of the evening.”
I gazed at him with incredulity. “Oh, John,” I cried ecstatically, “do you think we can prove that the cycles of time are not inexorable?”
“We can at least give the theory a fair trial,” he said smiling.
IV.
I poured John his third cup of coffee, but did not feel that it had happened before! A mild thump on the front porch informed me that the morning paper had arrived. I brought it in and laid it in front of John, then I fled to the kitchen, where the odor of burning toast apprised me of the fact that I was much needed. Returning with the scraped toast, I seated myself opposite John for the purpose of resuming my breakfast.
“What news?” I asked casually.
For answer John handed me the paper and pointed mutely to an enormous headline. His face was ashen and his hand trembled.
With a sinking sensation I read the large letters: “Head-on collision demolishes engines and cars, and kills seventy persons.”
“John,” I gasped, “is it—was it—the 8:15?”
His voice was husky with pent emotion.
“Ellen, it was the 8:15, and I have been on it in the other cycles of time. I know it now.”
I gazed at him incredulously for a moment, and then half in fun, half seriously, I said, “John, you are now living on borrowed time!”
He smiled a little wanly.
“Not exactly that, dear,” he said, “but my mind has been doing some rapid thinking since I saw those headlines, and I believe I have a solution to your ever-puzzling problem of the fourth dimension, time.”
“If you can prove my time-cycles are not incompatible with progress, evolution, and growth,” I cried eagerly, “you will make me the happiest woman on Earth!”
“Wouldn’t a new fur coat delight you more?” he asked teasingly.
“Well, that would help some,” I admitted, “but tell me what makes you believe that evolution and progress are fact, despite the eon-worn ruts of the cycles of time?”
“The fifth dimension,” he replied in a quiet voice.
“The fifth dimension?” I echoed, puzzled.
“Which is simply this, Ellen. There is a general progression of the Universe over and above the cycles of time which renders each cycle a little in advance of the previous one. We see and recognize this truth daily in the phenomena of humanity. Every baby born starts life a little in advance, materially and mentally, of its father. This process is very slow and we call it evolution, but it is a perceptible progress nevertheless. It may be aptly likened to the whorls of a spring as compared to a mere flat coil or wire. The earth follows an orbit around the sun, and every year it is in the same relative position with regard to the sun as it was the previous year. It has completed one of its countless cycles. But you know as well as I do that the sun and the earth, as well as the other planets, are all farther along in space together. There is a general progression of twelve miles a second on some vaster orbit. This general progression, then, is analogous to our possibility of change and growth; the power to better our conditions; in other words, it is a fifth dimension.”
“The wheels of the Juggernaut can be turned aside,” I said reverently, “and there is hope.”
A Runaway World
I.
The laboratory of Henry Shipley was a conglomeration of test tubes, bottles, mysterious physical and chemical appliances and papers covered with indecipherable script. The man himself was in no angelic mood as he sat at his desk and surveyed the hopeless litter about him. His years may have numbered five and thirty, but young though he was, no man excelled him in his chosen profession.
“Curse that maid!” he muttered in exasperation. “If she possessed even an ordinary amount of intelligence she could tidy up this place and still leave my notes and paraphernalia intact. As it is I can’t find the account of that important nitrogen experiment.”
At this moment a loud knock at the door put an abrupt end to further soliloquy. In response to Shipley’s curt “come in,” the door opened and a stranger, possibly ten years older than Shipley, entered. The newcomer surveyed the young scientist through piercing eyes of nondescript hue. The outline of mouth and chin was only faintly suggested through a Vandyke beard.
Something in the new arrival’s gaze did not encourage speech, so Shipley mutely pointed to a chair, and upon perceiving that the seat was covered with papers, hastened to clear them away.
“Have I the honor of addressing Henry Shipley, authority on atomic energy?” asked the man, seating himself, apparently unmindful of the younger man’s confusion.
“I am Henry Shipley, but as to being an authority—”
The stranger raised a deprecating hand, “Never mind. We can dispense with the modesty, Mr. Shipley. I have come upon a matter of worldwide importance. Possibly you have heard of me. La Rue is my name; Leon La Rue.”
Henry Shipley’s eyes grew wide with astonishment.
“Indeed I am honored by the visit of so renowned a scientist,” he cried with genuine enthusiasm.
“It is nothing,” said La Rue. “I love my work.”
“You and John Olmstead,” said Shipley, “have given humanity a clearer conception of the universe about us in the past hundred years
