me into my mind
all the strange incomprehensible matters which had whirled through our
lives in the last few days. At first they all crowded in upon me in a
jumbled mass; but again the habit of mind of my working life prevailed,
and they took order. I found it now easier to control myself; for
there was something to grasp, some work to be done; though it was of a
sorry kind, for it was or might be antagonistic to Margaret. But
Margaret was herself at stake! I was thinking of her and fighting for
her; and yet if I were to work in the dark, I might be even harmful to
her. My first weapon in her defence was truth. I must know and
understand; I might then be able to act. Certainly, I could not act
beneficently without a just conception and recognition of the facts.
Arranged in order these were as follows:

Firstly: the strange likeness of Queen Tera to Margaret who had been
born in another country a thousand miles away, where her mother could
not possibly have had even a passing knowledge of her appearance.

Secondly: the disappearance of Van Huyn's book when I had read up to
the description of the Star Ruby.

Thirdly: the finding of the lamps in the boudoir. Tera with her
astral body could have unlocked the door of Corbeck's room in the
hotel, and have locked it again after her exit with the lamps. She
could in the same way have opened the window, and put the lamps in the
boudoir. It need not have been that Margaret in her own person should
have had any hand in this; but--but it was at least strange.

Fourthly: here the suspicions of the Detective and the Doctor came
back to me with renewed force, and with a larger understanding.

Fifthly: there were the occasions on which Margaret foretold with
accuracy the coming occasions of quietude, as though she had some
conviction or knowledge of the intentions of the astral-bodied Queen.

Sixthly: there was her suggestion of the finding of the Ruby which her
father had lost. As I thought now afresh over this episode in the
light of suspicion in which her own powers were involved, the only
conclusion I could come to was--always supposing that the theory of the
Queen's astral power was correct--that Queen Tera being anxious that
all should go well in the movement from London to Kyllion had in her
own way taken the Jewel from Mr. Trelawny's pocket-book, finding it of
some use in her supernatural guardianship of the journey. Then in some
mysterious way she had,