the sunrise that it will leave it!"

"Go on!" said her father hoarsely.

"It means that for this night the Queen's Double, which is otherwise
free, will remain in her heart, which is mortal and cannot leave its
prison-place in the mummy-shrouding. It means that when the sun has
dropped into the sea, Queen Tera will cease to exist as a conscious
power, till sunrise; unless the Great Experiment can recall her to
waking life. It means that there will be nothing whatever for you or
others to fear from her in such way as we have all cause to remember.
Whatever change may come from the working of the Great Experiment,
there can come none from the poor, helpless, dead woman who has waited
all those centuries for this night; who has given up to the coming hour
all the freedom of eternity, won in the old way, in hope of a new life
in a new world such as she longed for...!" She stopped suddenly. As
she had gone on speaking there had come with her words a strange
pathetic, almost pleading, tone which touched me to the quick. As she
stopped, I could see, before she turned away her head, that her eyes
were full of tears.

For once the heart of her father did not respond to her feeling. He
looked exultant, but with a grim masterfulness which reminded me of the
set look of his stern face as he had lain in the trance. He did not
offer any consolation to his daughter in her sympathetic pain. He only
said:

"We may test the accuracy of your surmise, and of her feeling, when the
time comes!" Having said so, he went up the stone stairway and into his
own room. Margaret's face had a troubled look as she gazed after him.

Strangely enough her trouble did not as usual touch me to the quick.

When Mr. Trelawny had gone, silence reigned. I do not think that any
of us wanted to talk. Presently Margaret went to her room, and I went
out on the terrace over the sea. The fresh air and the beauty of all
before helped to restore the good spirits which I had known earlier in
the day. Presently I felt myself actually rejoicing in the belief that
the danger which I had feared from the Queen's violence on the coming
night was obviated. I believed in Margaret's belief so thoroughly that
it did not occur to me to dispute her reasoning. In a lofty frame of
mind, and with less anxiety than I had felt for days, I went to my room
and lay down on the sofa.

I was awaked by Corbeck calling to me, hurriedly:

"Come down to the cave as quickl