ose Court, Great Queen Street, an'
my reg'lar perfession is a-sellin' coffee "so airly in the mornin',"
and I've got a darter as ain't quite so 'ansom as me, bein' the moral
of her father.'

And now in my vision I perceived that Nin-ki-gal's face was that of
the old woman I had seen in Cyril's studio, and that she was dressed
in the same fantastic in which Cyril had bedizened her.

VI

I sprang up, struck a light and relit the candle, and soon reached
the coffin resting on a stone table. I found, on examining it, that
although it had been screwed down after the discovery of the
violation, the work had been so loosely done that a few turns of the
screwdriver were sufficient to set the lid free. Then I paused; for
to raise the loosened lid (knowing as I did that it was only the
blood's inherited follies that had conquered my rationalism and
induced me to disturb the tomb) seemed to require the strength of a
giant. Moreover, the fantastic terror of old Lantoff's story, which
at another time would have made me smile, also took bodily shape, and
the picture of a dreadful struggle at the edge of the cliff between
Winnie's father and mine seemed to hang in the air--a fascinating
mirage of ghastly horror.

* * * * *

At last, by an immense effort of will, I closed my eyes and pushed
the lid violently on one side.

* * * * *

The 'sweet odours and divers kinds of spices' of the Jewish embalmer
rose like a gust of incense--rose and spread through the crypt like
the sweet breath of a new-born blessing, till the air of the
charnel-house seemed laden with a mingled odour of indescribable
sweetness. Never had any odour so delighted my senses; never had any
sensuous influence so soothed my soul.

While I stood inhaling the scents of opobalsam, and cinnamon and
myrrh, and wine of palm and oil of cedar, and all the other spices of
the Pharaohs, mingled in one strange aromatic cloud, my personality
seemed again to become, in part, the reflex of ancestral experiences.

I opened my eyes. I looked into the coffin. The face (which had been
left by the embalmer exposed) confronted mine. 'Fenella Stanley!' I
cried, for the great transfigurer Death had written upon my father's
brow that self-same message which the passions of a thousand Romany
ancestors had set upon the face of her whose portrait hung in the
picture-gallery. And the rubies and diamonds and beryls of the cross
as it now hung upon my