.
Dad, with the characteristic cowardice of his sex, has left it to me to
say. It's--well, it's about a mummy: a female mummy, or, at least, I
suppose I ought to say a mummy that was once a female--about five
thousand years ago."

"My dear Niti----"

"No, no, don't interrupt me, for goodness' sake. It's too serious. It is
really. We've had something like a tragedy here in the last few days,
and things seem to have been, as you would say, a good deal mixed up
ever since. I don't understand it a bit; but they have been."

"But, my dear Niti, what on earth can you have to say to Lord
Leighton about a--a female mummy? What possible interest can a
five-thousand-year-old corpse have for him?"

"Don't, Brenda, don't--at least not just now! Wait till I've told you,
and then you'll see," said Nitocris, pressing her arm closer to her
side. "Lord Leighton is, as I think you know, an enthusiastic student of
Egyptian antiquities. He was also, or thought he was, in love with my
unworthy self. He found this mummy in a royal tomb at Memphis. He--well,
I suppose, stole it--of course under the usual licence from the
Khedive--and sent it home to Dad. Now comes the mystery. That was the
mummy of Nitocris, the daughter of the great Rameses, and it was the
dead image of my living self."

"Oh, but, Niti--what do you mean?"

"I don't know, Brenda. I wish I did. All I do know is that it was stolen
that very night out of Dad's study in the Old Wing, and that I've got to
tell Lord Leighton all about it. I'm sure Dad could have told him much
better, only somehow he seems afraid."

"Oh, is that all--just the stealing of what was perhaps a very valuable
relic? They try to steal much fresher corpses than that in the States if
there are dollars in the business."

"Don't be brutal, Brenda! I know you don't mean it, and it isn't like
you. Now, listen. Before he went to Egypt this time Lord Leighton asked
me to marry him. I said 'No,' and for two reasons. I knew that he liked
me very much--he always has done--and poor Dad took his liking for love
and encouraged him: but I'm a woman and, I know, that liking isn't
love--and then I love some one else. And now he, I mean Lord
Leighton--loves some one else. Turn your face to the moon. Yes, you know
who the some one else is. I'm so glad, for I do think you----"

"Niti, you're talking arrant nonsense for an educated young woman. I've
only known His Lordship for a day, and how can you----"

"Because