"I've told you the
truth about the bare possibility of getting back to the Earth. It's only
a chance at best, and even if we pass the Sun we may not have force
enough left to prevent the _Astronef_ from being smashed to dust or
burnt up in the atmosphere. After all we might do worse----"
"What would you do if you were alone, Lenox?" she said, interrupting him
in turn.
"I should take my chance and go on. After all home's home and worth a
struggle. But you, dear----"
"I'm you, and so I take the same chances as you do. Besides, we're not
perfect enough for a world where there isn't any sin. We should probably
get quite miserable there. No, home's home, as you say."
"Then home it is, dear!" he replied.
The resplendent hemisphere of the Love-Star sank swiftly down into the
vault of Space, growing smaller and dimmer as the _Astronef_ sped
towards the little black spot on the face of the Sun, which to them was
like a buoy marking a place of utter and hopeless shipwreck in the Ocean
of Immensity.
The chronometer, still set to Earth-time, had now begun to mark the last
hours of the _Astronef's_ voyage. She was not only travelling at a speed
of which figures could give no comprehensible idea, but the Sun,
Mercury, and the Earth were rushing towards her with a compound
velocity, composed of the movement of the Solar System through Space and
of the movement of the two planets round the Sun.
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