felt that there was some cloud
between us, for towards the end of the first day she began to shun me a
little; or perhaps it was that she had become more diffident that usual
about me. Hitherto she had sought every opportunity of being with me,
just as I had tried to be with her; so that now any avoidance, one of
the other, made a new pain to us both.

On this day the household seemed very still. Each one of us was about
his own work, or occupied with his own thoughts. We only met at meal
times; and then, though we talked, all seemed more or less preoccupied.
There was not in the house even the stir of the routine of service.
The precaution of Mr. Trelawny in having three rooms prepared for each
of us had rendered servants unnecessary. The dining-room was solidly
prepared with cooked provisions for several days. Towards evening I
went out by myself for a stroll. I had looked for Margaret to ask her
to come with me; but when I found her, she was in one of her apathetic
moods, and the charm of her presence seemed lost to me. Angry with
myself, but unable to quell my own spirit of discontent, I went out
alone over the rocky headland.

On the cliff, with the wide expanse of wonderful sea before me, and no
sound but the dash of waves below and the harsh screams of the seagulls
above, my thoughts ran free. Do what I would, they returned
continuously to one subject, the solving of the doubt that was upon me.
Here in the solitude, amid the wide circle of Nature's force and
strife, my mind began to work truly. Unconsciously I found myself
asking a question which I would not allow myself to answer. At last
the persistence of a mind working truly prevailed; I found myself face
to face with my doubt. The habit of my life began to assert itself,
and I analysed the evidence before me.

It was so startling that I had to force myself into obedience to
logical effort. My starting-place was this: Margaret was changed--in
what way, and by what means? Was it her character, or her mind, or her
nature? for her physical appearance remained the same. I began to
group all that I had ever heard of her, beginning at her birth.

It was strange at the very first. She had been, according to Corbeck's
statement, born of a dead mother during the time that her father and
his friend were in a trance in the tomb at Aswan. That trance was
presumably effected by a woman; a woman mummied, yet preserving as we
had every reason to believe