st of the trials which Robert Cairn experienced during the
time that he and his father were warring with their supernaturally
equipped opponent was that of preserving silence upon this matter
which loomed so large in his mind, and which already had changed the
course of his life.

Sometimes he met men who knew Ferrara, but who knew him only as a man
about town of somewhat evil reputation. Yet even to these he dared not
confide what he knew of the true Ferrara; undoubtedly they would have
deemed him mad had he spoken of the knowledge and of the deeds of this
uncanny, this fiendish being. How would they have listened to him had
he sought to tell them of the den of spiders in Port Said; of the bats
of Meydum; of the secret incense and of how it was made; of the
numberless murders and atrocities, wrought by means not human, which
stood to the account of this adopted son of the late Sir Michael
Ferrara?

So, excepting his father, he had no confidant; for above all it was
necessary to keep the truth from Myra Duquesne--from Myra around whom
his world circled, but who yet thought of the dreadful being who
wielded the sorcery of forgotten ages, as a brother. Whilst Myra lay
ill--not yet recovered from the ghastly attack made upon her life by
the man whom she trusted--whilst, having plentiful evidence of his
presence in London, Dr. Cairn and himself vainly sought for Antony
Ferrara; whilst any night might bring some unholy visitant to his
rooms, obedient to the will of this modern wizard; whilst these fears,
anxieties, doubts, and surmises danced, impish, through his brain, it
was all but impossible to pursue with success, his vocation of
journalism. Yet for many reasons it was necessary that he should do
so, and so he was employed upon a series of articles which were the
outcome of his recent visit to Egypt--his editor having given him that
work as being less exacting than that which properly falls to the lot
of the Fleet Street copy-hunter.

He left his rooms about three o'clock in the afternoon, in order to
seek, in the British Museum library, a reference which he lacked. The
day was an exceedingly warm one, and he derived some little
satisfaction from the fact that, at his present work, he was not
called upon to endue the armour of respectability. Pipe in mouth, he
made his way across the Strand towards Bloomsbury.

As he walked up the steps, crossed the hall-way, and passed in beneath
the dome of the reading-room, he w