"But I must really go and do something; I shall go crazy if I sit here idle." Margaret knew that the loss of the shell was the greatest blow that Roland had ever yet received.

His ambitions as a scientific inventor were varied, but she was well aware that for some years he had considered it of great importance to do something which would bring him in money enough to go on with his investigations and labors without depending entirely upon her for the necessary capital.

If he could have tunnelled a mountain with this shell, or if he had but partially succeeded in so doing, money would have come to him.

He would have made his first pecuniary success of any importance.
"What are you going to do, Roland ?" said she, as he rose to leave the room.
"I am going to find the depth of the hole that shell has made.

It ought to be filled up, and I must calculate how many loads of earth and stones it will take to do it." That afternoon he came to Mrs.Raleigh's house.
"Margaret," he exclaimed, "I have lowered a lead into that hole with all the line attached which we have got on the place, and we can touch no bottom.