life in Egypt was not the inscriptions or
monuments of which you make so much, but was our hermetic philosophy and
mystic knowledge, of which you say little or nothing."

"Our old life!" repeated the scholar, wide-eyed; and then suddenly,
"Good God, look at the mummy's face!"

The strange man turned and flashed his light upon the dead woman,
uttering a long doleful cry as he did so. The action of the air had
already undone all the art of the embalmer. The skin had fallen away,
the eyes had sunk inwards, the discoloured lips had writhed away from
the yellow teeth, and the brown mark upon the forehead alone showed that
it was indeed the same face which had shown such youth and beauty a few
short minutes before.

The man flapped his hands together in grief and horror. Then mastering
himself by a strong effort he turned his hard eyes once more upon the
Englishman.

"It does not matter," he said, in a shaking voice. "It does not
really matter. I came here to-night with the fixed determination to
do something. It is now done. All else is as nothing. I have found my
quest. The old curse is broken. I can rejoin her. What matter about her
inanimate shell so long as her spirit is awaiting me at the other side
of the veil!"

"These are wild words," said Vansittart Smith. He was becoming more and
more convinced that he had to do with a madman.

"Time presses, and I must go," continued the other. "The moment is at
hand for which I have waited this weary time. But I must show you out
first. Come with me."

Taking up the lamp, he turned from the disordered chamber, and led the
student swiftly through the long series of the Egyptian, Assyrian, and
Persian apartments. At the end of the latter he pushed open a small door
let into the wall and descended a winding stone stair. The Englishman
felt the cold fresh air of the night upon his brow. There was a door
opposite him which appeared to communicate with the street. To the right
of this another door stood ajar, throwing a spurt of yellow light across
the passage. "Come in here!" said the attendant shortly.

Vansittart Smith hesitated. He had hoped that he had come to the end
of his adventure. Yet his curiosity was strong within him. He could not
leave the matter unsolved, so he followed his strange companion into the
lighted chamber.

It was a small room, such as is devoted to a concierge. A wood fire
sparkled in the grate. At one side stood a truckle bed, and at the other
a