********************START OF HEADER********************
This text has been proofread but is not guaranteed to be free from errors. Corrections to the original text have been left in place.
Title: Iras, A Mystery, an electronic edition
Author: Everett, H.D., Mrs.
Publisher: William Blackwood and Sons
Place published: Edinburgh
Date: 1896
********************END OF HEADER********************
Front cover of Douglas's Iras.IRAS: A MYSTERYBY Theo. DouglasAUTHOR OF 'A BRIDE
ELECT'WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONSEDINBURGH AND LONDONMDCCCXCVIAll Rights ReservedIRAS: A MYSTERY.
CHAPTER I.I HAVE become subject to a failure of memory, the partial consequence of recent severe illness. Already, as I look back, a confused mist obliterates certain portions of the past; and names and dates have a trick of deserting me at the moment of requirement. I am told this naturally results from the weakness
I now suffer; but in my hours of depression I fear that mist with a deadly terror, foreboding how it may gather more thickly and blankly about me, until, from my lonely standpoint on a ridge of the dark mountains, all

the land of Beulah I have left will be blotted out.Therefore, that a certain experience may be for ever preserved to me, being in my sane mind and telling truth as on oath, I, Ralph Lavenham, write.I think it well to preface the narrative with a few brief particulars, which-should this MS. after my death fall into the hands of a stranger--may assist in a better understanding of what follows. I am singularly devoid of near ties.  I have no certain knowledge whether the name I bear is mine by right or mine by adoption: I never knew father or mother. I was placed at school by a guardian
who showed no disposition to cultivate a nearer acquaintance; and from school I
passed to college, where I made few friends and took only a moderate degree. At twenty-three I attained the control of my modest fortune, a few hundreds yearly,--not enough for wealth, but enough to set me free from the necessity of adopting a profession. The next ten years I spent aimlessly enough--

partly in foreign travel, and in writing one or two descriptive books which met with some degree of ephemeral popularity. And then I found at last the absorbing interest of my life in Egyptian exploration, and threw in my lot with a certain well-known body of workers.  From 1877 to 1882 I laboured in the Nile valley, working with hands as well as with brain, uncovering temple sites, opening tombs, deciphering hieroglyphics, driving fellaheen, and building up theories like the rest. But in the early spring of 1882 a misfortune befell me, and I was laid aside with sunstroke and fever.I had only myself to thank for it--so my friends were kind enough to tell me. I had presumed on long immunity and a naturally hardy constitution, and exposed myself over-recklessly to the increasing heat. We were then at work on the temple of Kom Ombo, examining the remains of that earlier foundation which dates from the Pharaohs of the Third Period, as well as the later structure which bears the symbols of the hawk and the

crocodile. I had been absorbed in the discovery of some unknown and deeply interesting particulars, relating to the temple service and with allusion to its mysteries, and was proportionately annoyed at having to relinquish my share in the work; but there was nothing for it but to return home.  It is natural to call England home, even when, as in my case, home is an empty name.I took steamer from Alexandria, and arrived in London so much restored by the sea-breezes that I resolved at once to set about the book I had planned, and for which I had already amassed voluminous notes. I found my former publishers open to negotiations, and having given an undertaking it should be forthcoming by the winter, I hired rooms within easy reach of the British Museum. I still suffered at times with my head, but not in a degree to debar me from work; and I spent the greater part of the summer and late autumn days sitting at my desk. The book grew, and by the end of August I had several completed chapters,

and my friend Knollys was at work on the illustrations to be developed from my own rough sketches, reproducing inscriptions and depicting certain curios, a collection of which I had brought with me from the East.My rooms in G--Street were moderately convenient, and my landlady would serve me there with a sufficiently palatable dinner when I was not disposed to go out to the club.  I had a bedroom and sitting-room on the ground-floor, the sitting room behind to ensure greater quiet, though the outside traffic was not great.  They had formerly been in the occupation of an artist, and their chief attraction to me had been the permitted use of a temporary outer room in the garden-court at the back, built there as a studio with top lights, and entered either by a glass door at the end of the hall or from one side of the projecting window of my study. In this I found convenient stowage for my collection, and Knollys would come to work there as a rule--passing in and out without disturbing me unless communication

became necessary.  In that early October of which I write--the October of 1882--he began to look in rather often, with an expression of concern on his kind quizzical face.  "I tell you what, Lavenham," he would say, "you are overdoing it,--that is where it is.  You will have your fever back again, and the devil to pay besides. You are working like a pack-horse, and I believe you hardly knock
off even to have your meals. I should like to get a doctor to give you a talking to."I looked up at my kind monitor on about the eleventh delivery of this diatribe, which had become an almost daily formula; and I was conscious, first, that my head was paining me worse than usual; and secondly, that the passage I had been striving for the last hour to elaborate would be better shut away till
I could go back to it with less wearied brain."You look like a ghost, Lavenham. You had better take my advice, and you know it. You cannot make any real advance till that precious consignment of Turkey sponges comes to hand, and that will not be for

another ten days at earliest. Lock up the pens and paper, and give yourself a holiday.  Is there no one you could take a run out of town to see, for the weekend if no more?"No, there was no one. I had forgotten my former associates, and had been forgotten by them; and there was not a single intimacy I felt disposed to revive. I had been away too many years, and since my return had inclined only to bury myself more and more remotely, like a hermit-crab in its shell. I shook my head over the suggestion."I would offer to go with you, but you know how I am tied at the present time. But I have for once a free evening, and I am going to throw it away in what will seem a sufficiently fantastic fashion to a grave and reverend seignior like yourself. I'm going to Mrs Bevis Payne's, and I want you to dine with me at the club, and come too.""My dear fellow, I don't know her, and I am sure she will not want to know me.""You are quite mistaken. She likes lions, and I will introduce you as one of the first

blood: my friend Lavenham, author, explorer, Egyptologist; engaged on a work which will be the book of the season! I've got a card for self and friend; and to tell you the truth, there's a little girl there I want especially to meet."I should have had no hesitation usually in negativing such a suggestion; but this time Knollys looked so kindly eager over his proposal, as he began to hunt his pockets for the letter, that excuses faltered on my tongue.  When the card at last was found and laid before me, my unreadiness had sealed my fate: it was tacitly understood I would go to this leonine reception with my friend.The card was somewhat peculiar. Below the announcement of "Mrs
Bevis Payne at home" was written, in a rather dashing feminine hand,
"Psychological Evening. To meet Madame St Heliers.""Oh, it's just one of Mrs Payne's fads," said Knollys, in reply to my inquiry. "Some-times it is theosophy--sometimes it is a mission to the heathen--sometimes it is art. Just

now it is palmistry and clairvoyance and all that--so Madge tells me.   I believe this Frenchwoman is rather an extraordinary person--ready to turn you inside out, analyse your character, and predict your future as soon as look at you. Madge is afraid of her, and so I am going to mount guard. She receives in the back drawing-room, and you need not go near her unless you like."This was all the preparation I had for what was before me. When Knollys was gone I so far obeyed his injunctions as to fold together my papers and put them    away, together with the flimsy pink telegram which advised me of the despatch of the case of Turkey sponges to which he had alluded. The sender was Jack Skipton, a friend in Alexandria, and the curious consignment really enveloped and concealed a widely different one, which I had requested him to procure for the purpose of some experiments necessary to my work. The true enclosure was a mummy of the superior class, still sealed in its original casings and un-

violated by the wholesale system of robbery which has prevailed in Egypt for centuries; a system by which the dead have been despoiled, not only of such valuables as it was the practice to bury with them, but of the very spices with which their bodies were embalmed,--stolen in former times to figure again in the market, and take a fresh turn of service with the modern dead. I was in this case to be the despoiler, as I wished to submit these spices, or what traces remained of them, to the analysis of an expert. I had for long suspected that in the higher walks of the embalmer's art--as mentioned by Herodotus and others--     existed certain secrets both of ingredient and method; and to trace these, as far as might now be possible, was part of the design of my book.  It is in these days no easy matter to procure such a mummy as would serve my purpose, as there are certain restrictions which are difficult to evade. But I knew, if the thing could be accomplished at all, Jack Skipton was the man to put it through for me; and the coming

of that flimsy pink paper with the brief message, "Expect sponges," had that morning assured me of success.I had certainly awaited the intimation with some anxiety, and was gratified by its reception; but the singular excitement which agitated me from that time forward was quite unexpected and wholly annoying.  It must be due, as Knollys said, to overwork--together with the pain in my head, and the sudden inability to string together a dozen connected sentences of what before had been ready to flow from my pen. I could not count on many vacant days if the MS. was really to be completed within the terms of my engagement; but it might, after all, be the
wisest economy of time to try what rest would do for me--over the week-end at any rate: leaving a shut desk behind in G--Street, and spending a solitary Sunday by the sea.It was a somewhat haggard countenance which faced me in the glass as I made my evening toilet--a ceremony I did not often perform; but Knollys, when I joined him

at the club, professed already to see improvement. I could not honestly say I felt better--the pain in my head still continued, together with the over-rapid unequal pulse; but I told him of my projected visit to Brighton, and he was on the whole well satisfied.We were early arrivals at: Mrs Payne's--probably Knollys was pledged to be punctual; and I imagine he had in some way contrived to sound the leonine trumpet before me, as I was received with effusion.  Mrs Payne professed herself honoured, and volubly regretted having so small an assembly to meet me--so few people had yet returned to town, &c., &c. The drawing-rooms were certainly empty on our arrival, but in another half-hour they began to fill up as if the psychological entertainment promised attraction; and I noticed that Knollys managed to keep a remarkably pretty girl at his elbow in a recess, the hostess's attention being mainly directed to me. This no doubt was Madge, who I discovered was a companionable poor relation and guest, not a daughter of the house.I did not expect to meet acquaintances, and stood about in solitary fashion when Mrs Payne was not plying me with dexterous flatteries, or questions about the East and my forthcoming work. She introduced me here and there; but conversation all ran in the same groove about the mysterious Madame St Heliers: had I consulted her before? did I know if she had arrived? Was it not possible she might fail Mrs Payne at the last, she was said to be so very uncertain? Or was she all the time behind the heavy velvet portières which shut out the inner room? I need hardly say these queries were feminine; indeed the feminine element largely prevailed at the gathering, only four or five black coats keeping Knollys and me in countenance.The sibyl did not fail us: the expectation had hardly become strained when I saw our hostess turn to the door to greet a new arrival.  This was a small person dressed in brown, a soft gown which trailed after her on the floor, and who did not attempt, as so many short women do, to ape a higher

stature by any exaggeration of coiffure. She was elderly enough to be 
grey-haired, and only redeemed from plainness by a good pair of eyes. The eyes had, I thought, a peculiarly intense and magnetic look about them; and, while Mrs Payne was whispering instructions, she deliberately surveyed the room, and looked curiously at me as I stood against the wall behind the arm-chairs of the dowagers. What she thought of her audience I cannot say--they were not a particularly attractive gathering; but she shrugged her shoulders and spread out her hands with a foreign little gesture of protest in replying to Mrs Payne, who forthwith conducted her behind the closed portières, and both disappeared from view.With this the stiff order of the room was broken up, and small groups began to press nearer to the curtains in the hope of an early interview. Mrs Payne when she reappeared was at once besieged. As I looked on from my post of observation with, it must be confessed, only a languid interest, wondering how

soon I could slip away with Knollys, my attention was arrested by a totally unexpected figure. This was a man in the sacerdotal costume of ancient Egypt, such as I have seen portrayed in temples and tombs, and associated with the blue complexion which is the conventional sign of the priestly caste. His garment of white linen partly covered the head, which I saw was shaven: he was tall in stature, lithe and upright, and his distinctly Egyptian features would have been
strikingly handsome, but that they were disfigured by so intense an expression of malevolent anger. He came into view from behind a knot of people near the doorway, some twenty feet away across the width of the room, and stood for a few seconds in the vacant space, his eyes blazing into mine and his hand clenched, while I remained transfixed with astonishment.It may have been half a minute before he moved, slipping behind another group nearer the recess--his face turned on me to the last with the same look of scathing hatred.

With his withdrawal came an instant impulse to follow; but it is impossible to rush across a room full of people, elbowing them right and left, and treading recklessly on the trailing skirts of the women. I had to thread my way with caution and courtesy, and, tall as was the figure and peculiar the attire, I completely lost sight of it in the crowd. When I gained the recess, no one was there but Knollys and his inamorata, and two elderly ladies, each engaged in conversing into the ear-trumpet of the other."Which way has he gone--the Egyptian?" I said sotto voce to Knollys. He gave me a bewildered look, totally at a loss to guess
my meaning. "You must have seen him from here--you can see down all the length
of the room. A tall fellow in white linen, like a priest.""My dear Lavenham, there is no such person here: we don't go in for fancy dress. Unless indeed"--with an appeal to the girl beside him--" it is some satellite of Madame St Heliers'?"Madge shook her pretty head and looked puzzled.  Madame had a black
page, she thought; but no--she had never brought him here with her; and she too had seen nobody. I did not think that very surprising in either case, as probably she and Knollys were both engrossed with affairs of their own. I could not cross-examine the deaf ladies, so I strolled back into the larger room to keep watch on the doorway; but the singular figure did not appear again. Could it have been somebody masquerading?  But who would take the trouble for such an instantaneous appearance, and in a costume of which perhaps I alone of all those present would comprehend the meaning? And it was not as if I had been a specially invited and expected guest. I had been brought there as an impromptu after-thought by Knollys; unless, indeed, Knollys was in the plot--an idea quite untenable. I tried to anchor myself on the conviction that the man was a confederate of Madame St Heliers'--it was easy to suspect a fortune-teller of any amount of charlatanry; but the

dress and the stare of anger, and the fact that he seemed to attract no attention from the persons surrounding him, unusual as had been his appearance, still remained unaccountable by any explanation I could guess at.In the meantime several people had penetrated one by one behind the drawn curtains, returning--some graver than they went, others giggling (these were mainly the younger ones)--when Mrs Payne appeared to be summoned to a conference. On her return she waved away the eager aspirants. "I must beg of
you all to wait a little," she said. "Madame has seen ten ladies, and she now asks for some one of the opposite sex. She says it prevents an undue drain on her power to have an alternation. This time I am to send a gentleman, and she asks for the gentleman with a beard who was opposite the door when she entered.  That must be you, Mr Lavenham. You'll go in, of course?"It had been far from my intention to consult the oracle; but it occurred to me on the instant that here was my opportunity to solve the

mystery of the Egyptian--doubtless I should discover him in the back 
drawing-room in conjunction with the rest of the diablerie. I thanked Mrs Payne, and came forward at
her bidding; disappearing in my turn behind the curtains.CHAPTER II.THE back drawing-room had been effectively arranged in semi-darkness; a single lamp with a deep red shade burnt in the farther corner, and under the circle of its illumination sat Madame St Heliers. She wore a black lace scarf thrown over her grey curls, possibly because the room felt chilly with only the
embers of a dying fire left in the grate; and she sat propping her chin on her hand, and looking fixedly and in silence at the entering victim. I made my bow also in silence; I would wait, I thought, for the sibyl to address me, and abstain from leading questions. The Egyptian was not visible; but my eyes were
still dazzled with the glare of the outer apartment, and might not penetrate his hiding-place.Madame maintained her silence and her serious aspect sufficiently long to make me feel somewhat foolish; then a bright smile flashed from eyes to mouth, irradiating her small pale face, and she drew aside the velvet folds of her dress, pointing to a low seat at her side."You did not want to come to me--I know that; and you have no opinion of this sort of thing--I know that also.  But I was attracted to you directly I saw you, and determined I would have a talk with you.  You are a man with a history--it is either made or yet to make. I shall soon find out which it is, little as you credit my methods. Give me your hands."I held them out palm upwards, scarred and roughened as they were with the manual labour of the past. She took them with her soft ones, and held them closer to the circle of red light, poring intently over them for a few moments. Then she released me, and leaned back in her chair, looking rather grave."I have seen hands by the hundred, and

read spheres by the hundred also,--that is, the personality, as perhaps you would term it, which is often more indicative than the lines.  But I never knew a parallel case to yours.  I am glad I made you come. You are unique."It was now my turn to smile. Was this the jargon, I thought, which was ready for all comers?"There is plenty of history. You had an unhappy childhood.  Your life has been solitary--you have travelled far across seas--you are a writer. Some one might have told me all this, might they not? though I do not know even your name. Am I right so far?"I assented briefly, but I had the thought she indicated. Much of this might have been known of me through Knollys to Mrs Payne."But the history I see is to come. Your solitude is nearly over.  You are an affectionate man, though you do not know it.  You are capable of passionate devotion, and you will throw your all at the feet of a stranger, who will become suddenly, in a

moment, the ruling influence of your life. Whether this will be for good or for evil I cannot determine; it seems to me that you are under the shadow of a great calamity, but I am unable to say if it comes to you with your love. You have the gift of clairvoyance, but I imagine it has hitherto been dormant: you may in this way receive warning. And I would warn you also that you have an enemy, and a powerful one, who will strike you through your heart's dearest, and strike home. That will be the blow which shatters: see here! it is marked already, through your heart and fate. Beware of the snows of winter and Orion low in the east. Now Mrs Payne will expect you back. Have you anything to ask before you leave me?"I had risen, accepting my dismissal, and she rose also as I stood before her. My eyes by this time were focussed to the dim light, and I could be sure we were alone in the room, which was a small one. "Tell me this," I said; "who is the Egyptian?""The Egyptian?""Yes; the man in white linen, shaven like a priest. What do you know of him? Did he come with you ?""Then do you see him as well?" was her counter question.  "That is a danger the less. Beware of him; it is he that is your enemy."She came close to me, speaking these words in an emphatic whisper, and then pushed me away from her with both hands as Mrs Payne opened the curtains.I forgot all about Knollys. I made my acknowledgments and excuses to our hostess--how I can hardly say; for all is confusion to my remembrance till I found myself alone in the street under the night sky, facing the chill autumn wind as I walked eastward. I think it was that cold breath about me which cleared my brain and brought me to myself, for I felt as a man might who is drunk with the inhalation of a narcotic. What spell had bewitched me in that ordinary middle-class house, with its good-natured hostess and crowd of common-

place guests, credulous enough to be entertained by a fortune-teller? I would fain have styled the fortune-teller commonplace as well, but the term did not fit Madame St Heliers. I could not help suspecting that her magnetism had wrought about me this singular disturbance of the senses, and I was conscious the words
 of her ominous warning were burning themselves into my brain. The irritability induced by overwork had rendered me sensitive to impression-- doubtless that was all; but I could not feel Knollys's prescription of a social evening, however well meant, had met my case.I went to bed and to sleep without opening a book, and woke late, though unrefreshed, as I had been harassed by dreams. After breakfast I went as usual to my desk, resolving to limit myself in the way of hours, but was aghast to find I was incapable of the effort of composition. I sat with the pen in my hand
staring blankly at the unwritten page, and at last flung it from me in despair. Knollys was right--whatever the sensitive intellectual

machinery may be on which we depend for origination, it was clear mine had been over-strained; and, for a time at least, I must try change of scene and rest.I dashed off a line to leave for Knollys, and in another hour had taken train for Brighton.  I should perhaps have done wisely to seek a quieter place with more of country surroundings, rather than go in this way from a town to a town; but, with all my usual occupations cut away, it seemed to me that I should feel less ennui in a crowd, even though it would be a crowd of the unknown.I arrived there on a Friday afternoon, and spent that evening and most of the following day dawdling up and down the esplanade, or propped against the railing puffing tobacco-smoke. As I looked out over the heaving plain of green water, I heartily wished myself back again, spade in hand, among my comrades in the 
East--battling with our enemy the sand, at once the great obliterator and the
great preserver of those relics of a dead past. Welcome the hot wind like the breath of a

furnace, the torrid sun, the plague of flies beyond the power of even a Moses to remit, could I have exchanged for them England and inaction such as weighed upon me now.There was beauty in sky and sea, and music in the wash of the waves on the shingle, wet higher and higher every moment by the advancing border of foam; but my eyes were dull to the one as my ears to the other. I could not get up the faintest interest in the endless procession of Bath-chairs, the over-
dressed women, the riotous children, the abounding dog-population, the smart equipages and equestrians in the ride. Possibly I was all the more disposed to dwell on the events of my last evening in London, and the expected consignment from Alexandria, than if my mind had been otherwise occupied.I had seen too many mummies to be sanguine as to Jack Skipton's
capture being a real treasure-trove of historical interest; but I hoped it would prove to be an unopened one of the higher caste, such as I stipulated for, and suitable for the desired experiments. I

had strolled down to the shingle on the Saturday afternoon to while away the last hour before table d'hôte, scrutinising the boats hauled up above the tide-line, and picking my way among waifs of sea-weed and débris, but with the pink telegram shut up in G--Street always the rallying-point of meditation. The very sky seemed to have taken the hue of it, flushed as it was now with the decline of day; but when I at last turned hotel-wards my thoughts were scattered by the shock of a sudden surprise.A man was standing some yards behind me, higher up the steep shore, and nearer to the steps leading to the promenade,--the same white-robed figure I had seen in the London drawing-room, and with the same expression of vindictive anger. This time the hand was raised with a threatening gesture, and in it shone something which might have been a weapon. There was plenty of light to show the features and the fashion of the linen garment, for twilight had hardly yet begun to follow sunset. He stood for about the same

space of time as before, and then, turning on his heel, began rapidly to mount the steps.I plunged upwards through the heavy shingle, bent on following and
accosting him. He had reached the top of the steps ere I had more than
gained the bottom, but, as if he had no desire to escape me, he turned
and waited, facing me once more. If his motive were attack he would
thus have had me at a disadvantage, and I was armed only with a light
cane; but I was too intent on solving the riddle to hesitate. I was
near enough to see the gleam of his eye, and to recognise the figure
of a crocodile displayed upon his breast, when my foot caught on an
uneven stone and I stumbled forward. It was only a moment before I
recovered myself and was at the top; but the man was gone, and had
disappeared as completely as he had done before at Mrs Payne's.The esplanade was thronged with people enjoying the fine evening, but not so crowded as to afford concealment for such a figure, and in the moment of time which had passed

since I fell at its feet. I looked from side to side, at a loss which way to follow; and no doubt appeared singular enough in my hurried rush up the steps and pause of bewilderment, for I noticed several of the passers-by turned to look, and a man leaning against the rail with a cigar was in particular regarding me curiously.I put the same question to him as before to Knollys. A man in a white dress had come up the steps in front of me: would the stranger tell me in what direction he had gone?The man stared incredulously. He had been looking at the steps-had
seen me rush up them from the beach and stumble forward, but there was
no man in white. It must have been an optical illusion--of light on
the notice-board, which I could see was at the top, and which probably
misled me. So far with courtesy, but as I moved away I saw he turned to his companion and tapped his forehead significantly.That little action impressed me fully as

much as the appearance, and I walked back to the hotel inexpressibly
discomforted. Was that the true explanation after all? Was my brain no
longer to be relied on--not alone for the faculty of work which had
deserted me, but to show me in their true shapes the common
surroundings of this common world?  If so, the end might come--must
come; life would be impossible, I thought, under conditions such as
these. And then there floated across me again the recollection of the
fortune-telling woman in London, and her mysterious words, "You see
him too!" That implied community with another; another who might help me, and explain--where reason told me no explanation could stand which was not more fantastic than the fact.That was a dismal evening. I did not care to go out after dinner; my experience of the afternoon and the doubts which followed it seemed to have filled all the outside world with an atmosphere of pain into which I hesitated
to plunge. I broke through my usual reserve and tried to talk to the men in the smoking-

room. I even attempted a game of billiards, at which I was once somewhat expert. But my companions did not interest me--the green cloth had lost its charm; I could not fix my attention on the spheres of ivory; and I went early to bed, hoping to find forgetfulness in sleep.I did sleep for the first hours of the night, and then woke and lay
listening to the distant rhythm of waves on the shingle, fully audible
in the stillness. My room was to the front of the house, an old-fashioned one in an avenue running westward at the northern end of the parade, not far from the sea. After a while the darkness grew oppressive; and as a glimmer between the drawn curtains suggested moonlight, I got up, pulled them apart, raised the blind, and looked out.The pavement opposite was alternately silver-white and black with shadow; the sky was clear, the night fair and still: I seemed to be the only creature awake and astir in all that somnolent world; the fleecy cloud just showing above the smokeless chimneys hung

motionless, as if the winds also slept. A town at night looks more dead in its repose than the country ever can; more suggestive of something wanting--the full life which throbs through it in the day.I raised the window-sash-softly, for fear of disturbing sleepers in the vicinity, huddled on a coat, for my tropical experiences have left me chilly, and proceeded to light a pipe: tobacco and cold air taken conjointly might perhaps prove soporific.  A few congenial whiffs had soothed me into a placid train of thought, when, as I bent forward to knock out the ashes before refilling, I was attracted by a movement among those still lines of shadow to the right.A figure had turned into the short street or court at the top, and was passing on the opposite side of the way, soundless-footed as a cat. A dim shape only in the shadow, but when it moved on into the moonlight--good heaven! was it a somnambulist taking an airy stroll in his night-shirt, or the same enigma
which had been visible half-a-dozen hours

before on the sea-shore? Was it only my own imagination which figured the clean-shaved Eastern face with the delicately chiselled features and terrible eyes, upon that which looked up into mine at the moment of passing out of dimness into light, and forward again into shadow?  It may have been so, but in that breathless instant it seemed to me that I again saw the Egyptian.I was a late breakfaster the next morning, though not a solitary one; but the coffee and bacon had scant relish as a preliminary to the long empty day stretching before me, full of self-doubt and self-communing which I could not evade. I am not a habitual church-goer, and I believe it was some impulse of early superstition which suggested to me that I should thus take sanctuary as it were from my enemy,--the same feeling which prompts an old crone to put a Bible under her pillow as a safeguard against hobgoblins. I consulted the waiter, and found I could hardly reach any of the fashionable churches in decent time; but
there was one not more than a street's-length

away, where service would barely have begun.  I care nothing for candles and ritual--the consecrated place and the occupation were all I desired; so I followed the direction of the waiter, and found the church he indicated.It was certainly not a fashionable one, but the old-style high box-pews were well filled.  As I was ushered into one of them by an official on the watch for sixpences, the dismal appearance of the place struck me with an ominous chill. Pulpit and reading-desk were draped with black cloth, and the same funereal emblem of woe was festooned along the front of the heavy gallery: more than two-thirds of the visible bonnets were black, and pocket-handkerchiefs were liberally displayed.  A severe looking individual, who noticed my destitute condition, handed me a prayer-book; and I ventured on a whispered inquiry."For the late incumbent," was the reply-whisper.  "A funeral sermon."I had truly chanced upon an admirable remedy for depression of spirits ! I forget the late incumbent's name--I am not sure if I ever

knew it--but I remember the discourse in which he was eulogised, and the sniffs and sobs which presently arose in my vicinity.  How the world went on before that admirable man embarked on the task of its correction, how it would continue now his guiding influence was withdrawn, were alike left to conjecture. The preacher was very impressive, very flowery, and--very long-winded.  I listened in a species of warm drowsiness which had succeeded my wakeful night, and was perhaps further induced by the notion of a security under that roof greater than I could feel under any other; and when the concluding "And now" brought the congregation to their feet, I was almost sorry the sermon had ended and it behoved me to turn out into the street.I stood at the pew-door, letting the stream flow past me before I
followed it, and looking towards the point of exit, when a face turned
back to me in the crowd, magnetising my gaze to it on the
instant-passed on and disappeared in the porch. It was again the

Egyptian, and again the same shock as in the night thrilled through nerves and blood. But another surprise was in store for me.  Had I been disposed to follow, it would not have been possible to leave the pew at the moment, as there was a temporary block against the door. It was caused by a stout woman who had dropped a cargo of small books in the aisle, and they were being gathered up for her by a polite stranger, and a young girl who blushed very much, and was, I think, her daughter. Stepping from an opposite pew on the farther side beyond the block was the person to whom beyond all others I desired to speak--Madame St Heliers.She looked at me without apparent recognition, but it was she beyond the possibility of mistake: the same small pale face and intent eyes and grey curled hair, though now surmounted by a bonnet instead of her laces; and she wore brown velvet of the same hue, though this time it was a feathered mantle. She passed quickly to the door, following the

Egyptian; and by the time I had at last struggled out of my durance and was in pursuit, she too had disappeared. But I was able to tell myself she at least was no delusion.  Madame was in Brighton, and this might explain--must explain--the coincidence of the Egyptian. To find and question her was now my purpose: not for a few apportioned minutes as at Mrs Payne's, but for the explanation which I divined she could give of the unwelcome mystery that had come into my life.I went back to the hotel a new man: the definite aim lifted for a time the cloud of despondency which hung darkly over me, and I did not at first appreciate the difficulty of the undertaking which lay before me. There is an old-world saying about searching for a needle in hay; and seeking for one woman in a wilderness of streets and houses is nearly its parallel.  I did my best both that day and the Monday morning, calling at one hotel and boarding-house after another, and asking for Madame St Heliers, only to

meet with an invariable negative. Of course it was quite possible she might be staying with private friends, and possible also that the name under which I knew her might only be adopted professionally, while her real cognomen was commonplace Smith or Robinson. I had all along intended returning to London on the Monday: I would still do so, see Knollys and ascertain her address, which
he could discover for me through Mrs Payne, and then again take train for Brighton and the interview I desired.CHAPTER III.I SENT a wire from the station to Knollys, "Come round to my diggings this evening," and took the afternoon express up to town.  Months instead of days seemed to have elapsed since last I travelled through that autumnal country: the sear woods with their brilliant leafage hardly yet despoiled, the golden stubbles broken here and there by the fresh lines of the plough, the flat pastures and the grazing flocks. I can feel the beauty of, rural England, though it does not appeal to me through associations of a happy past, which no doubt makes its chiefest charm to the many. Those long days at Brighton had brought with them strange experiences, painful doubts, acute depression; and I felt an

older man for all I had gone through. I was still revolving the same hideous perplexity, still arraigning my own sanity at that inward bar of judgment, as the panorama of open country shifted to suburb, and the question was yet unsolved when the train glided in under the echoing roof of the great terminus.There is a certain element of comfort in most things which habit makes familiar--like an old shoe trodden easy to the foot, or an old coat stretched to the curve of one's shoulders; and in this way there was some amount of comparative home-likeness in my return to G--Street.  Mrs Mappinbeck received me with smiles, and had a cheerful fire alight in the sitting-room; and I felt hope stir within me as I looked at the shut-up desk in the corner. If I could work
again, I thought-the work round which all my interests centred--I might well afford to put away into oblivion that harassing enigma.I had finished my solitary dinner and after-glass of claret, and had read through the evening paper from beginning to end before

Knollys made his appearance. It was cheering to see a friend's face;
and he came in full of kindly interest, a bit of wholesome fresh
reality to be the touchstone for sick fancies.  I had resolved to make
a clean breast to him of my trouble: he was not the  man to betray my confidence, even to a woman; and with him I should be safe.If we had been a pair of Frenchmen I suppose we should have embraced, but being only unemotional Britons, "Holloa, Lavenham!" and, "Here I am again, you see!" was the extent of our greeting.  I pushed across the claret to the clean wine-glass side, and he threw off his overcoat and drew in to the fire, giving me a glance as if not wholly satisfied with my appearance. "I doubt if you have given Brighton a long enough trial," he said. "I would have been round earlier,
but I got behindhand with an off-day last week, and am trying to make up for it with longer hours.  I could not even afford to keep Sabbath yesterday, and go and see Madge as I wished. I am glad to see you

back, old fellow; but you haven't taken enough of my prescription, and I had rather you had stopped away.   There's a paradox for you!""Very likely I shall go back to Brighton to-morrow,--that is, if I can get an address I want there. But I'm afraid change of air won't meet my case. It is harassing me a good deal, Knollys; and I would like to have your opinion, if you have patience to go into symptoms.""Patience enough for a dozen doctors, but the usual amount of lay ignorance.  I am capable of much sympathy, but of very little advice. But tell me what is up. Have you been worse than I thought?"With that I began my story--the story which is written here.  Never in my life before had I experienced a spectral illusion, not even when delirious with fever, if indeed that were the true explanation of what I had seen. At my first sight of him in Mrs Payne's drawing-room, I had no suspicion whatever that the Egyptian was any less a creature

of flesh and blood than I was myself. I had confidently taken him for a satellite of the fortune-teller, and part of her mise en scène; and the first idea that he was in some way associated with her had been strengthened by the singular reply she made to my question--or counter--question, to be more accurate."I don't think anything of that," Knollys broke in at this point.  "Those people are nothing if not mysterious.  No doubt she seized the opportunity of impressing you, without the least real knowledge of what you referred to--or the fellow was her confederate all through."
"Wait and hear the rest."   And I went on to tell of the apparition on the beach, as solid in appearance as the other; of the deliberate pause made on the steps, the disappearance at the instant of my stumble, and the man who, looking on, had seen nothing save me alone.   Knollys did not interrupt again or express incredulity.  I told of the midnight passer-by, of the face in church,

and of the presence of Madame St Heliers; and when my narrative came to an end he made no immediate reply. It was not easy to find anything reassuring to say to a man who has been the victim of such an experience; but after an interval of staring at the fire and tugging at his moustache, he spoke with confidence."Look here, Lavenham, I'll tell you how it strikes me.  I think there has been a mixture of fact and delusion over this, which accounts for some of the difficulty. Of course you know you ran a risk of knocking up when you settled to this literary work directly after such an illness as you had abroad.  What you have experienced is just the result of an overtaxed brain--all on the lines of what has occupied your mind, if you consider: you are writing about ancient Egypt, and your phantom is naturally an ancient Egyptian.  The affair at Mrs Payne's may very well have been a bit of masquerading hocus-pocus on the part of the Frenchwoman; I did not see anything myself, it is true, but then I

was not looking out for it.  That made an impression on you, your nerves being all wrong at the time--that, and Madame's patter which followed it--an impression of which your brain or your visual nerve, one or other, was retentive, and externalised to you the first opportunity.  No doubt that
first opportunity was your solitude on the beach; and on the other occasions the same thing happened, but less perfectly. I daresay there was a real 
night-prowler going down the street, and you reflected on him the face which was in your mind, and the highly inappropriate costume into the bargain.  The same upon some unsuspecting individual in church; and Madame St Heliers' presence was a mere coincidence--"I shook my head at this, but he went on."You have asked my opinion as a lay doctor; my advice is, go and consult a real one. Tell Messrs Travis & Co. they must extend the time for your book--there will be no difficulty to speak of; and take a couple of months' complete idleness. It is what you

ought to have done when first you came home.""I may consult a doctor after a while," I said, "but I am going to some one else first."Knollys's eyes made the inquiry if not his lips as I paused over filling my pipe."I am going to consult Madame St Heliers. You may be quite right, Knollys--I daresay you are; but before I do anything else I must get to the bottom of that woman's connection with the mystery.  I failed to find her at Brighton, and now I want you to help me.  Find out from Mrs Payne where she is staying, and let me know."I believe you are on a wild-goose chase; and you'll find she won't do anything for you--because she can't. But if it is understood you will see a doctor after, I don't mind helping you to this first, but you will have to make haste.  I know from Madge that Madame St Heliers is going abroad for the winter, and is on the point of leaving England; for that was a sort of farewell appear-

ance the other night at Mother Payne's. I've no doubt I can get her address, as she and Mrs Payne are very intimate--birds of a feather, as the saying is; but it is not a feather I have a fancy for. I'll drop a line to Madge if you'll give me pen and paper, and post it as I leave here. I shall get an answer by the afternoon, and I will bring it round to you, if it tells what you want. Will that do?"He wrote the letter before he left me--a longer one than the shaping of the mere inquiry; but that, I suppose, is the way of lovers. His explanation was plausible, though I could not feel it altogether met the case: but to have eased my mind by the avowal, and to have shared my burden with another, was much; and his cheerful conviction that all lay within the realm of the physical and the
reach of a doctor's prescription, comforted me in spite of myself. I slept soundly that night, and the next morning rose to find Jack Skipton's letter on the breakfast-table.I have it by me, and shall transcribe such portions of it as bear upon my narrative."DEAR OLD CHUM,--Your precious
consignment is safe through the custom-house and en route; and I am enjoying--in company with a
bottle of India pale--the first moment of real ease which has visited
me since I received a certain commission. Never was there such a job
in the doing as this which I undertook at the call of friendship; and I doubt if even friendship such as ours would stir me up to the undertaking of a ditto. As for myself, I ought to take rank as Orestes and Pylades rolled into one; and I only hope, friend Lavenham, that you appreciate yours truly at his proper value."That the valuable shipment really is what it professes to be--(not in the bills of lading by the way!)--an unopened mummy-case of the Twentieth Dynasty or thereabouts--rests on the assurance and testimony of that old Arab thief, Abd-el-Moluk of Thebes. And that he believes it 'goes without words'; for does not the promised remuneration--which, by the way, touches the outside limit of what
you empowered me to offer--depend on the

consignment satisfying you on every point? Till I get your assurance that all is on the square, that money remains on deposit, suspended, like Mahomet's coffin, between heaven and earth. So wire me back when you get the thing open, that I may put the old fox out of his misery. Not that he will own to any doubt about it; on the contrary, he seems particularly confident."I knew if any one could put the thing through for us he could, being up to all the tricks of the trade, the real and the false together; and, what is more, I have his neck in a noose through a certain past-and-gone transaction not suitable for daylight. However he may swindle others, I did not think he would draw the feather over me. So I sent for him, and he came up to my rooms, looking
as pious and venerable as you please, the old fox, and swearing by the beard of his Prophet that he only breathed to serve me--and all that rot. I told him what we wanted, and made him understand, in language more forcible than polite, that none of his cooked-

up shams would go down in your case--it must be the real Simon Pure. Well, he took to muttering a string of things out of the Koran, as they do when they are afraid of the evil-eye, and then he went to the door and looked out; and finally he came close up to me--a good deal closer than I liked, for your Arab is odoriferous. He could put his hand on the very thing for us, provided I would keep counsel; but there were difficulties in the way--of course; and it would cost much money--also of course; and might lose him his soul into the bargain. This was an item I did not expect, but as he is certain to be damned any way, it ought to have been light in the balance. I asked for particulars, and he came out with a truly extraordinary story, which you can believe or not as you like. For my own part, I am inclined to believe a good deal of it, the man went such an awful colour over telling it, and the sweat stood out on him in drops. It seems, about eighteen months ago or rather more, he was engaged as head over a gang

of workers for the Government among the cliffs out there by Luxor: a lynx-eyed official to look after him it is needless to state, or else the Government would have bagged little.  Among the tombs of the priests they opened one of a fellow named Savak, after the lesser deity of the Sun. It turned out a rich yield--a papyrus or two, a very fine funerary statue, and other things, which went to the Boulak Museum; Abd-el-Moluk says so, at any rate.  It was not so highly decorated as some of the others--probably the proprietor was cut short in the days of his youth; and he seems to have died a bachelor. While this place was
ransacked, Abd-el-Moluk noticed signs of carefully concealed working in the limestone at the back, indicative of a tomb within a tomb, which is, as you know, not unusual. Instead of pointing this out to his 'boss,' he kept his
suspicions to himself--for good reasons, doubtless; and when the search had passed on to other quarters, and the place was deserted again, he and four of his myrmidons returned there secretly, and fell to work at the back

of the Savak excavation--with the result he anticipated.  There was an inner chamber hermetically sealed, with a sarcophagus of alabaster, and within it the identical mummy-case which is now on the high seas, hidden away among your sponges."Of course the object was spoliation, and the mummy would naturally have been examined then and there for valuables and papyri; but there was some sign or inscription in the inner chamber (if an inscription, it was of course in the Hieratic; but Abd-el-Moluk reads that after a fashion), invoking a curse so terrible on any who should violate its sanctity, or disturb the sleeper within, that he was glad to get off with his prize; and he and his men beat a hasty retreat, carrying off the mummy-case.   Here Abd-el-Moluk's story failed in clearness.  Something happened which frightened the whole five of them out of their wits, I could not make out what, but evidently they supposed it to be supernatural; and, concluding the mummy was bewitched, they resolved upon abandoning it, first giving

it a hasty reburial. A hole was dug in the sand at a point Abd-el-Moluk could mark down, the thing was shovelled over, and the conspirators fled. There Abd-el-Moluk believed it still remained; and this bundle of malefic influence was what he now proposed to offer you-for a consideration."I thought the affair seemed promising.  It was evident, the superstition of these body-snatchers having been so strongly aroused, that the mummy was really inviolate; so I signified to Abd-el-Moluk that I was willing to treat--on the conditions I mentioned in the beginning. He also advanced conditions. I was to hire a dahabeeyah and crew of my own, and go up myself to Luxor; and the crew were to have the privilege of disinterring the mummy and putting it on board. Abd-el-Moluk would accompany me to the spot and point out its whereabouts, but he was not to be required to touch the thing so much as with the tip of his finger, nor would he return to the dahabeeyah when it was shipped.  Once I was in possession, he and I would

part company; and except for the after-question of payment--for which he has
already begun to hang about--see each other's face no more. The whole artful contrivance was to shift the ill-luck of that mummy disturbance on to my convenient shoulders, and to get off scot-free himself--plus the cash, if you were satisfied."The whole thing was an infernal nuisance. I did not want to go up to Luxor. I did not want to be caught red-handed in the possession of an unlawful mummy. Any man in his senses would have said no, and left the old Arab fox to bring it down at his own risk, bad luck and all. But there was, after all, something attractive in the spice of adventure; and this, and the strong considerations of
friendship aforesaid, sufficed to prevail. So I consented, and stood committed to dahabeeyah, expedition, and everything else, at
Abd-el-Moluk's dictation."I need not dwell on the preparations: you are an old Nile voyager, and can fill in my sketch with details from recollections

of your own. Suffice it to say that dahabeeyah was sunk as a preliminary, and all the vermin took to their boats, and came on board again expectant the instant of its reappearance.  It was one of the four-cabin ones, with a single saloon; the reis was a friend of Abd-el-Moluk's, and we had a picked crew. I invented an errand at Luxor which would
serve as a reason for going up there should anybody be inquisitive; and accordingly put in a couple of days at the place, and interviewed some of the officials. Abd-el-Moluk had chosen his night, clear starlight with a late moon; and the evening before we dropped down a mile or two below the village, and came to anchor. We left the reis with two men on board, and took the rest of the crew
with us, Abd-el-Moluk and I, setting out soon after sundown, for the distance was considerable. That was a queer expedition, I can tell you, and I believe it had begun to get on my nerves as well as Abd-el-Moluk's; he had been praying all day like a fasting dervish.  As we went I tried to shake off the eerie

feeling by indulging in a little jocular conversation, but he would have none of it, and hinted the greater prudence of silence.  It had not been possible to secure anything to ride without betraying our errand, and I was dog-tired with tramping through the sand when we got to the foot of the cliffs. The  moon was just then coming up behind the mountains to the east; and, by Jove! there was something in her cold white light that night which gave me a chill down the back: she wasn't the jolly old moon that used to light us home from frolics, but quite a different sort of luminary."Abd-el-Moluk found the place--there seemed to be nothing to mark it from the other sand-hillocks--and the men set to work digging in the loose stuff. The temporary grave was a shallow one, and it was not long before the spades struck substance, and they began to uncover the mummy-case-a finely decorated one of sycamore-wood, which you will appreciate.  It was easy to see by this time that Abd-el-Moluk was horribly agitated;

he turned quite livid, and kept glancing up at the rock openings above us, either fearing surprise, or else his superstitious terrors were getting too much for him. And it would not have been difficult to fancy anything in that scene and by that light, with weird moving shadows all about us. The men had brought
some striped cloth and padding to disguise the shape, in which they rolled the thing like a bale of goods, turning it over and over and fastening it with cords; and when ready it was hoisted on their shoulders, and we prepared to follow back to the shore. I don't fancy they half relished what they were about;
but they had been offered the bribe of double wages for the job, and for holding their tongues.  We were back at the river-side much faster than the outward journey, and my prize was hauled on board and installed in an empty cabin; while he reis, according to promise, despatched a boat 
up-stream to convey Abd-el-Moluk back to Luxor."So far all was well, but the very quintessence of bad fortune seemed to have come

on board to us with that mummy. I know not if any of it followed Abd-el-Moluk, or if the whole farrago stuck to me. We fell under no suspicion, it is true, but I never had such a dropping down the river in all my experience. There was not a single sandbank which that dahabeeyah did not run her nose upon, and everything it was possible to foul she fouled. Once we were in imminent peril of sinking, mummy and all, and were saved as it were by a miracle.  The reis was in despair, and the sailors began to mutter among themselves with evil looks both at me and my cargo: I believe they thought they had a Jonah on board. One man went the length of deserting, and the reis had a panic all the rest would follow. I was afraid they might make away with the mummy, which would not have suited my book after the trouble of the capture and indebtedness to Abd-el-Moluk. I put some screws of my own in the shutters of the cabin, and at night, hot as it was, made up the door of entrance and the door into the saloon, and lay with

mine open and a revolver handy.  I am a light sleeper, and kept a sort
of dog-watch; the least noise and I was up. The last night but one I
had an adventure--which for the life of me I can't explain, unless it
was a particularly vivid nightmare. There had been no noise--I can be
sure of that; but I woke all of a sudden flat on my back in my bunk,
and there was a man's face close to mine. It was a strange face, mind,--none of our crew, and many degrees lighter coloured than any of them: and there was a murderous look about it which made me feel I had but the moment to strike for my life. Pah! I can see the glitter of those eyes whenever I shut my own. I had my revolver close by me, and it was ready loaded; and in less time than it takes to write about it, I pointed it full at the face and fired. I am a pretty dead shot, as you will remember, and that bullet ought by rights to have blown the top of his head off--he wasn't more than two feet away. The little place was full of the smoke of the discharge, but I was up in a

moment looking for my victim, and, now that it was over, half ashamed of my panic.  But the fellow was clean gone, and not a trace was to be seen of any one having got in. My bullet had blown a hole in the upper-deck--that was all, except the disturbance on board as if bedlam had broken loose with the alarm.
The doors were fast, just as I had left them, and the reis could not explain matters; he did nothing
but mutter spells out of the Koran, after the fashion of old
Abd-el-Moluk. There is a sensation for the finale: all that came
after, and the risks encountered over transport and shipment, would be
only an anticlimax, so I will end here. One word more. I am not a dab
at hieroglyphics, but, so far as I have been able to make out, the
mummy on its way to you is that of a woman--the virgin daughter of the priest Khames.  Send me that wire without fail, to relieve my mind as well as Abd-el-Moluk's, and believe me, dear Lavenham, your devoted--"J. SKIPTON."I got back to work that morning, and was greatly relieved to find
the capacity for it had returned to me. Not that I was able to take up
the broken thread of the previous Thursday--there an invisible barrier
still withstood me; but, contrary to my usual plodding custom, I
passed on to another branch of the subject, and found my pen again
fluent.  Except to be amused by it, I did not think much of Jack's
letter, nor did it occur to me till later to connect his experience with my own. I had done a fair day's work by the time Knollys looked in, and was feeling better satisfied with myself and my world.He seemed to have taken on my mantle, for he looked harassed and ill at ease, and faced me on the hearthrug instead of subsiding into his usual seat by the fire.  I thought, too, that he scrutinised me with greater solicitude than he had shown the day before."I am all right, old fellow," I said, in answer to his look more than his words.

"I have set to work again; and I believe, after all, that was what I wanted, for I feel a new man. Have you got the address?""I have heard from Madge," he said, taking a letter from his breast-pocket, and opening it with a reluctance palpable even to my slow apprehension.  "I am afraid you will not be able to consult Madame St Heliers, for she has gone abroad.  And, Lavenham, it must have been some one like her in the Brighton church.  She spent the whole of Sunday at Mrs Payne's, and was there to lunch; and they saw her off yesterday by the boat-train to cross from Folkestone."CHAPTER IVMY hallucination, then, was double--of the fortune-teller as well as her confederate; unless, indeed, it had been, as Knollys tried to persuade me, a mere case of mistaken identity with the former.  He argued that a spectral illusion would have shown her to me as I saw her that first evening--the Egyptian had maintained the same appearance throughout--and would not have added the bonnet and mantle I had described to him. He took a slip of paper out of the
letter, on which was written in a pretty girlish hand, "II Avenue du Nord, Hyères.""Madge sends the address to which letters are to be forwarded, but Madame will not be there for three weeks--so Mrs Payne

says.  She will be moving from place to place, and visiting friends, and her plans are uncertain.  But you can write there if you like."I took the paper and thanked him mechanically. My mind was running on this new development, and I was striving to put behind me the ominous impression, the awful doubt of my own sanity which confronted me afresh.  I could see Knollys was anxious, and had feared the effect on me of the communication he was bound to make. "Do you think of writing to her?" he said."I may do so; I am not sure.   I want to force the truth from her, and it is easier to evade a written question than one put eye to eye.""You still think she had a hand in it, though the coincidence of her presence on Sunday has broken down? ""I know she spoke as if from knowledge of the man and his connection with me, and, sooner or later, I will find out what she meant by it.""Well, as things have turned out it will be later, unless you write. I have done my part of the bargain, Lavenham, and now I want you to do yours. You will go to a doctor?"I put that inward argument aside to smile at him--he was such a
good fellow, and he looked so much in earnest. "A specialist for
mental cases? " I asked."Good heavens ! no: not that, in the sense you mean. A clever all-round man, who will find out just how your nerves are out of order, and the best way of putting them to rights. Don't mistake my urgency, or imagine that I have such a thought of you.""Very well; if I find the trouble continues, and comes between me
and my work, I pledge myself to see any doctor you like to name. But I
must choose my own time. I can't submit to a possible ordering away till Skipton's crate comes to hand, and I have ascertained it is what I bargained for. Then I will put myself in leading-strings--shut up shop and keep holiday, if the faculty advise."I made a double condition in the foregoing--not only of the interval till I received the mummy-case, but also of the continuance of my malady with the former disabling result.  And in the days which followed I saw nothing of the Egyptian.  I slept ill, it is true, and was harassed by disturbing dreams; and I had little appetite for the fare Mrs Mappinbeck provided: but I was haunted by no hallucination, and I found myself able to write. I could not work as before, confining myself to a planned system, and what was written at that time is fragmentary; but I thought then, and I think still, it has a higher literary merit than anything I have yet attempted. It was as if a feverish exaltation was upon me, temporarily increasing the powers of the mind as such a condition does sometimes the powers of the body. My desk had a fascination for me, and I tore
myself away from   it with difficulty; but, mindful of former collapse, I kept the hours of labour within bounds and took daily exercise--long evening walks into the suburbs,

prolonged perhaps unduly, but my object was to tire myself out physically, and thus compel sleep.Knollys was not wholly satisfied with these proceedings: he would look in now and then, and ask when I was going to the doctor, and if my sponges had come to hand; but he never inquired whether I had written to Madame St Heliers. And indeed I was at first undecided whether to write or no, and for three or four days I kept the address by me and did nothing.  But in the end I did write--a carefully worded letter, and despatched it to the address in the Avenue du Nord, to await her arrival there. It was many long weeks before the answer reached me, and by then my view of the situation had radically changed, as will be seen later.By the time I posted that letter I was in daily expectation of Skipton's consignment. I had made arrangements for its reception in the studio; setting certain low trestles in a convenient light for the better display of the mummy-case, which--if as fine as repre-

sented--I wanted Knollys to sketch as one of the illustrations for my book. It seems strange now to remember those preliminaries, and the unmoved and business-like view I took of the great packing-case when first I beheld it--through my bedroom window to the front-being lifted off a dray by three men, who seemed to have as much as they could do to get it up the two steps and within the hall door. I had a carpenter at work in the studio, putting up a shelf or two of which I was in need, and I pressed him into the service. But the noise and
scuffling were considerable, and the men, being awkward with the crate, brought it in damaging collision with the wall of the passage--peeling off a long strip of decorative paper which was dear to Mrs Mappinbeck's soul; and that, too, just as the worthy lady arrived on the scene of action. Generally speaking, I was high in her favour; but I found it was possible she could be tart--and on this occasion she was very tart indeed. Her wrathful eye marked the

torn paper, and mentally entered it to my account; but she made no open complaint of it, nor did she notice me as I stood by. Her objurgations were all addressed to the men. She would trouble them to make less noise, and bring that great awkward thing in more carefully: she had an invalid lady on her first floor, a lady of title (the widow of a city knight), who would be seriously
annoyed by all this disturbance, and she was bound to consider her lodgers. And so on in shrill falsetto while the case was propelled through the glass door into the studio, and I followed to make the necessary arrangements with the porters. It was certainly large; and when they vanished perspiring I was left contemplating it in company with my carpenter, and planning a united attack.The lifted lid disclosed a close layer of sponges, which, besides giving a title for the customs, had made excellent packing to preserve the more valuable contents from any damage in shipment. When swept out by

handfuls, a bale of striped cloth became visible, tied with cords-evidently the mummy-case just as it had been wound up for transport at Luxor, as described in Skipton's letter.  I did feel a growing excitement as the carpenter and I lifted it out on to the floor, undid the careful wrappings, and finally exposed it to view.It was a very handsome one, as Skipton had said--fashioned in resemblance to the human figure within, though so much greater in bulk; the lid pointed at one end to indicate the upturned feet, and at the other carved into the similitude of a face, and of crossed hands above the breast. The wood was beautifully finished and in excellent preservation, and covered with hieroglyphics and figure-subjects, in which a great part of the colouring still remained; and the face and hands were finished with a kind of yellow varnish. It was doubtless a somewhat gruesome object to the uninitiated. My British workman looked at it in silence, and scratched his head; and an aggressive small rap at the

studio door was followed by an exclamation of alarm. "I just called in, sir, to ask--O  Lord! whatever's that?"What my landlady had called to ask I never discovered: the sight
before her seemed effectually to scatter her ideas.  With an instinct
that propitiation might be politic, I indicated the litter on the
floor, and asked if she had any penchant for
sponges. "These are the best Smyrna ones, I am told; and pray help
yourself to as many as you like.  Why, Mrs Mappinbeck, this is what is
called a mummy-case, and it has been sent me direct from Egypt by a friend. It is a fine specimen; and Mr Knollys is coming to make a drawing of it one of these first days. It is probably about three thousand years old- perhaps more." I was going on to descant on the rock tombs and their contents, when the indignant horror deepened on the face of my auditor."Are you meaning to tell me, sir, as how there is abody inside of it?""What was a body three thousand years ago. Probably not much in human likeness at time present."Thereupon ensued confusion, out of which I managed to understand the following. She was a lone woman and a widow, and had taken me in as a gentleman; and now I was taking her in by turning her respectable lodgings into a charnel and a dead-house for disreputable heathen corpses. Lady Wilkinson--just now her trump-card--didn't in general go where there were gentlemen lodgers, but had consented to put up with me, seeing that I was such a quiet gentleman, with never any goings-on. Lady Wilkinson would be with her for the winter certain, if
all was what she expected; but if she found there were corpses about, she would walk out of the house that very moment. She had left her last rooms after two years just because there happened to be a death in the family--a death as couldn't be helped, being just the will of Providence. And now here was a body brought in under her very nose;

and who was going to make the loss good to her, Mrs Mappinbeck? And so on da capo."But, my good woman," I said, as soon as I could put in a word, "how is she to know there is a corpse here unless you tell her yourself? Lady Wilkinson is not likely to come into the studio.""Oh, it was all very well to talk; but where there was corpses there was death-smells; and if Lady Wilkinson would not go into the studio, there was no answering for Lady Wilkinson's maid, who was an inquisitive sort of person, here, there, and everywhere she wasn't wanted; and not above tale-bearing either!""She won't get through a locked door, Mrs Mappinbeck. And so long as it is needful for my purpose to keep the mummy at hand, I will undertake it shall be locked and the keys in my pocket. And if the room needs cleaning it must wait for it." I might have added that it often did want cleaning, and was quite accustomed to waiting. It was

some time before I got rid of the landlady; but when she did depart, it was on the understanding that the mummy should remain under lock and key while on the premises, and that I should use all reasonable dispatch in getting it removed elsewhere. She had no objection, she said, to the case, but it was--with one last long shudder in departing--thecorpse!My British workman had stood by grinning during this altercation, and when the last bellicose whisk of the landlady's petticoats vanished through the doorway, he asked if I wanted him to assist in opening-the box, or whatever it was! That had in reality been my intention before Mrs Mappinbeck appeared on the scene; but the passing annoyance had cooled my ardour, and I experienced a sudden disinclination to have the man meddle with my treasure. I possessed the requisite tools, and could do the work myself at my own leisure; and possibly it might be better to let Knollys make his drawing before it was disturbed.  So the carpenter got his congé after helping

me to lift the weird-looking thing on to its trestles, and making a summary clearance of the packing-wood and sponges. Then I took the keys of the two doors according to promise, and left it in sole occupation of the studio.There was nothing in all this to upset the nerves,--a fracas with a vulgar woman, the arrival of an expected purchase; but, as I sat down to my desk, I became again possessed by the peculiar agitation and excitement which had befallen me on the arrival of Skipton's telegram--the day of the reception at Mrs Payne's--and it had the same result as before. I found myself utterly incapable of adding a single line to my MS. I began a letter to Skipton, to be finished after examining the mummy--but with that also it became impossible to proceed. Of what new seizure was this the precursor? I felt minded to rush off at once to the indefinite doctor so often preached to me; but I had promised to leave the choice to Knollys, and must await the result of his inquiry. At length I dashed

off a line, informing him of the coming of the mummy-case, and asking if he could come round the next day to make his drawing.With that I left the locked-up studio and went for a walk-out in the Highgate Rise direction, past the old church and church-yard on the hill. I walked till the mid-October afternoon darkened down upon me and the stars came out; and then, finding myself near a station and pretty well tired out, took the train back into London.I had an answer from Knollys next morning.  "Glad you have got your sponges, old fellow," he wrote, "but I can't come round and draw them till Sunday. I have a new piece of work on hand needing urgent despatch, and it may lead to something good and permanent; so you'll forgive me putting you off.  Sorry your landlady makes a fuss, but you must soften her heart into giving the deceased
one house-room for another week." I had been careful to say nothing of the return of that symptom of excitement, and the letter

contained no allusion to my health. I felt I had done well to be reticent, for something had befallen me in the night so inexplicable--except on the dream hypothesis--that I hesitated to communicate it, even to Knollys.It was, I knew, just possible that I might be exaggerating a vivid dream into a reality. The precautions taken to satisfy Mrs Mappinbeck and secure the studio from observation might very well have recurred to me in sleep distorted by grotesque anxiety; and then the impression on the nerves, which Knollys talked about, might again have projected the Egyptian figure in conjunction with this disturbance. But, as it seemed at the time, I waked from snatches of uneasy sleep sometime in the small hours--starting broad awake in a moment under the spur of an intense anxiety, as if some threatened danger were close upon me or upon the house. I raised myself on my elbow to look and listen: the room was not perfectly dark, as the street-lamp shone into it between the venetians; but nothing was there to cause

alarm-I was alone in the comparative stillness of a London night, and the sole sound other than usual was the thick hurried beating of my own heart. Then the anxiety, which had at first been vague, took shape in the direction of the studio, suggesting something wrong there with Skipton's mummy. It was not a likely object for a burglar to make away with, but I believe that was the ruling idea: the men who delivered it--the carpenter-even--Lady Wilkinson's maid, might be in communication with a gang of burglars, and have surmised possible treasure in that still inviolate sarcophagus. It seems to me that I did not surrender at once to these misgivings. I lay still, the one-half of my mind in argument with the other, administering dose after dose of self-ridicule, all utterly without effect, for the uneasiness grew. At last the mental picture of the great case in its semi-human form and grotesque colouring, lying defenceless under the stare of those unshaded upper windows, so wrought upon my fancy that I felt there was nothing for it but to proceed

to the scene itself and make sure of its safety.I got up, huddled on some clothing, took a lighted candle with me and the key which opened the door leading from the sitting-room. The place had that eerie look which even familiar rooms will acquire when we revisit them dark and deserted in the night. The gas flamed up at the touch of a match; and so, leaving illumination behind me, still with the lighted candle I went on.That one candle shed only a feeble light into the large bare room full of shadows.  There was the night sky looking in through those shadeless windows, as I had pictured to myself: the grim half-human shape of the sarcophagus lay on its trestles as I had left it, but what upon that ? What was the white form stretched upon it stark as a corpse as I entered, but which moved as the light
flickered, gathered itself together to rise, and turned on me--the face of the Egyptian?I am ashamed to say the shock utterly unnerved me. For once I knew what it was

to be afraid with that extreme of terror which holds the very springs of life arrested for one awful moment. What I did with the candle I know not. I did not drop it, but it was suddenly extinguished, and there I was alone in darkness with that inexplicable presence--that face of fiendish hatred which had just
looked into mine.Thank God! the moment of panic passed--moment or age, which was it?--and in the reaction I was myself again.  I found the shut door behind me, from which I had not advanced many steps, flung it wide, and retreated into the gas-lit sitting-room.  To relight the candle was the work of a moment, and armed with a stick-the revolver in my bedroom was too far to seek--I re-entered the studio.There was, be it remembered, another exit, but this was locked and the key in my possession; except by this and those high windows in the roof, the man could not have got out save by passing through the lighted room in which I was, and yet he had abso-

lutely disappeared. I set every gas-burner in the place aflame and made the strictest search, but could find nothing. When I had seen anew to the security of all the fastenings I went back to bed, and after a time to sleep, waking in the morning to ask myself whether what I had experienced in the night was fact
or vision--vision in the sense of dream.I write of the feelings and doubts which beset me at the time. I know now of a certainty who and what it was I saw.Through the following day I strove to employ myself actively, and banish from my mind as much as possible what had gone before. I went round to the experimental chemist whom I designed to employ for the various analyses of the embalming process, and spent the best part of the morning arranging the direction of these with the expert. He also undertook to relieve my G--Street lodgings of the custody of the mummy as soon as Knollys and I had done with it.On my return I made a careful copy of the
 
inscription on the case, and of the emblematic figures; this will be found among my Egyptian papers, so I need not transcribe it here at length. It set forth that the case enclosed "the sole orphan and virgin daughter of Khames, 
high-priest of Amen-Ra and one with Osiris; beloved of the priest Savak."
There was, however, a peculiarity in the phrasing of the inscription.  All Egyptians believed death would be a temporary sleep, after which the mummy would be reanimated by its ka--the vital principle--and again fitted for the habitation of the soul. But in this case the insistence on the term sleep was somewhat out of the common--perhaps paralleled by that departure from usual custom which sometimes appears in newspaper announcements, describing our own dead as having "fallen asleep" on a certain date, instead of the more ordinary term.The task of copying and translating was not a long one. I completed it in the course of the evening, and then felt utterly disinclined for bed and hours of forced inaction, during

which the feverish excitement, that still possessed me would keep me wakeful, and flash its search-light unrestrained into all the dark
 places of my soul. I wanted the shield of occupation between me and those fears--for myself and of myself--which I desired to keep at bay; and I resolved to spend the night in making examination of the mummy. I lit the fire which was ready laid in the stove that warmed the studio, saw to the lights, and desired the servant to place for me in the sitting-room the tray with materials for making coffee and preparing a light meal, which I was accustomed to have at hand when working unusually late.The studio warmed and lighted presented a very different aspect to its appearance the night before; and the spectral form seemed to be effectually exorcised by the cheerful accessories of fire and gas.  Working as silently as might be--for had I not to consider Lady Wilkinson's aristocratic slumbers?--and with extreme care to avoid damage, I unfixed the great lid, sealed in its place in

ages so remote that the bewildering procession of centuries and
-generations makes one dizzy in retrospect.  Underneath was the
protecting cartonnage smeared with bituminous
resin, hard and thickly coated, so that the task of cutting through it
was both slow and laborious.  I worked gradually round it till I could
remove the whole upper part corresponding with the lid of the
sarcophagus: it did not appear to be moulded as closely as usual to
the form, and a glimpse within showed something different to ordinary
mummy cerements. When lifted away, it disclosed a wrapping of some
costly fabric resembling gold tissue; and fastened upon this was a thin tablet coated with wax, on which an inscription had been engraved or scratched with a stylus.It was enough to make the eyes of an Egyptologist glisten.  I no longer thought Abd-el-Moluk's bargain a hard one--probably the tablet was worth it all. What precious historical testimony might not be enshrined therein? or domestic detail of a bygone age,

setting in familiar light before us the dead and gone actors which trod that stage of the world?  I broke the fastenings and carried it to the light, not heeding that the rotten stuff which shredded away with it was left partly open.Unfortunately I have no exact copy of the writing, and the tablet is not now in my possession. I left it behind in the studio during my absence, carelessly omitting to secure it among my papers; and neither Knollys nor I could find it when we returned.   I am obliged to trust to the memory of that night. To the best of my remembrance it ran as follows:--"I, the priest Savak, servant of Sebek, have sealed the virgin, the daughter of Khames, in trance according to the Voice of the Oracle.  Not of this land or generation is her lover; but he yet unborn that awakes her from sleep before the seven ages have passed over, his she will be. And if the seven ages pass without awakening, she is dust and she remains mine. To this she submits with knowledge,

having denied herself to me in marriage; and, being obedient to the
Voice of the Oracle, goes down alive into the tomb, willing to
sleep. And I, Savak, do seal her in the inner chamber to be mine; for
were it seventy ages instead of seven, and were the land perished
under our feet that abides continually, I would pursue her until she
turn to me. And I, Savak, do seal the inner chamber with my curse, and
with the curse of my God, which shall dwell with terror upon him that
meddleth and upon him that openeth.  And to him, the lover--in the
ages to come, and the generations to come, should he find her over my body and the guard of the tomb and the guard of the curse, I do set against him wager of battle that his days be not long in the land; neither hers to whom life returns and youth returns for seven spaces, according to the ordinance of the eternal gods."CHAPTER V.THIS was indeed an extraordinary piece of archaic romance on which I had stumbled; and in the elation of discovery I went over it a second time to ensure correctness before the full horror of what was signified smote me with comprehension, and I became aware of a certain consequence that touched myself.
Not that I could be the foredoomed lover; but that the sarcophagus held no mummy after all, but the body, or what had been the body, of a girl who had met with the horrible fate of burial while yet alive--doubtless through the jealous vengeance of this rejected lover, this priest of the crocodile god. But that, if the tablet spoke truth, there had been no embalming, and could be no analysis, was clear.As I sat at the table with the inscription before me, my back was
turned to the coffin. I pushed the chair sideways and glanced round at it, when all power of movement was arrested by surprise. Thrown carelessly out of the disturbed wrappings, and hanging over the edge, was a woman's arm-slender, exquisitely rounded, warm with life.  Was it believable that a human creature could have existed under such conditions and in such suspension for three thousand years? the trance of a toad shut in a rock paralleled by enchantment!  The first shock of conviction past, I started to my feet--I would look nearer at this wonder. The rotten shreds of tissue had been torn apart by the movement of the arm, and there within lay the sleeper in the perfect bloom of her young womanhood, white robed from throat to foot, the darkly fringed eyes still closed, the soft breathing just stirring the linen folds which veiled her breast.The face I looked upon was beautiful, but it was a marvel the more that I did not

regard it in the least as one looks upon the beauty of a stranger. I knew my heart's one love when I saw her face to face. All the aching loss of my solitary life--all I had lacked hardly knowing--was present to me in that moment, as I recognised a need filled, an incompleteness suddenly made whole.  Will that be the fashion of those meetings in a world beyond to which some strong in faith look forward?  Speechless with the wonder of it, new born into joy and into a rarer atmosphere where it was difficult at first to breathe, I stood and looked upon the sleep which I alone from the beginning of the ages had been ordained to break. Was it moments or hours before I took the warm small hand in my own, before the red lips parted with a sigh, the dark-fringed eyelids lifted, and the eyes and the soul behind them looked into mine?At first with a question in them. Then came knowledge, recognition, joy in the sweetness of a dawning smile, though the lips were still serious.  "Oh," she said, "I am not

dreaming! I am awake at last; and it is you--my lord."Now here was a fresh wonder. This girl, who had lived her waking life when the savage dwellers in our islands of the sea were grubbing in fellowship with the cave-bear, and gabbling some dialect of Norse, had spoken to me in perfect English, and understood when I replied to her in the same tongue.  It seemed then to come by nature that we should be one in language; but the surprise of it struck me after. I believe my ear was so attuned to the soul of her speech that I heard this rather than the form of words; between us two the confusion which fell upon the builders of Babel had been done away. I noticed later that she hesitated to address any one but myself, and did so in the imperfect speech of a foreigner; while at first she seemed unable to comprehend what was said to her, unless a touch completed the link with my understanding of it. But I am anticipating.Can I tell what I replied to her--can I

remember what expression of words rose to the surface of that driven sea of feeling which had been stirred to the very depths?  Her lord! nay, but her slave and servant; hers absolutely by the right which love has over love. A thought expressed itself between us as conceived, and mine involuntarily had been--would she turn from me?  Her radiant youth, though so incredibly the elder of my own, assorted ill with that weather-beaten scarecrow of a countenance which I saw daily in the glass, and the grey streaks in my hair. Her delicate fine hand which lay in my work-hardened palm accentuated the contrast.She had raised herself by this time, and was sitting up in the coffin while I knelt beside her; and she laid the other hand with a momentary touch on that same grizzled hair."You are wanting to change yourself for my sake, but where is the need?  It was your face as I see it now that I saw in the divining-cup, and in the smoke above the

altar.  It was your face as I see it now that gave me strength to go down alive into the grave, and has been with me as I slept and dreamed.   O my master, is it true I am awake at last? or is this but one dream the more, sweeter than all?"It was reality, I told her: she had waked to truth and life.  Not a moment longer should she linger in her prison, which was broken for ever.  And I lifted her, she permitting, and set her beside me on her feet.  I held her guarded for the first uncertain moment in which she wavered and clung to me, but when it passed she stood up firmly, a lithe slender figure, tall above the common stature of woman. As she drew herself erect, the coils of hair which had been banded round and round in the coffin dropped loose, and fell a dark veil about her, hanging almost to the knee.  Did this transgress some ancient rule of etiquette?--for she flushed all over her lovely face, and stepping back from me
began to coil it up again into a great Greek knot.Ah me! if I had the artist's gift of portraiture I could paint her
now as she stood there, gowned in pure white with gold threadwork in
the bordering and about the girdle, twisting her long hair with that
flush under the rich tint of a cheek hardly darker than an English
brunette's.  "Tell me a name to call you by," I pleaded. She paused
with her hands still twisted in her hair, as if she were listening for
some far-away echo, and then a smile lit her up like sunshine. "I am
born again into life," she said. "I do not want to go back to my old name--it did not bring me happiness. You shall give me a name.""I will give you my own, if you will take it," I answered. She looked at me with a sweet half-comprehension, like a child at once perplexed and confiding. I liked to meet her eyes, they gave me so strange a thrill; but this was a glance and no more. Some aroused consciousness dropped the screen of dark lashes over them, and she turned away to look round the big bare studio with its

shelves and packing-cases and general litter--Knollys' and mine." Is this your home ?""It is only my workroom--in temporary quarters. I will have a better home than this to share with you, dear heart.  There are lovely spots in our island of the north: or I could take you back to your own land--to Egypt-after a while."" Not to Egypt--not there. I am afraid.""Afraid-with me! Afraid of what?"Her reply was hardly above a whisper, as if she had suddenly grown fearful of her own voice. "Afraid that he may separate us after all."" Tell me who you mean."She was standing close to the table at which I had sat to decipher
the inscription: the tablet lay upon it, and the low-breathed
confession had hardly left her lips when she started and bent forward
to examine it.  "That is the name," she said, laying her finger on the
words in the hieratic writing--Savak the priest.  "I dare not say it: it is

he who is my enemy, and will be yours for my sake. O my master, put it away--cover it! the words seem to evoke him from the air."I tossed the tablet away face downwards, and took her hands, for she was trembling. The events of that night had swept away from me for the moment all recollection of my former trouble, and of the Egyptian: besides, doublet and hose was bound to show itself courageous to petticoat.  "You have been wonderfully preserved to me, dear heart; but the man who was your enemy has been
dead and dust for centuries. It is beyond his power to harm you or come between us, either in Egypt or here."Her gaze followed the tablet as if fascinated--she did not appear to heed me. I looked also, constrained by her example; and there before us, right above where it had fallen, there floated a light film of cloud, and out of this looked for a moment--looked and vanished--the face which had haunted me by the sea-shore and in London. She gave

a shuddering cry like a creature in extremity, and hid her eyes against my breast: I knew she saw as I did. Her enemy might be dust as I had boasted, but I could no longer deny there was survival of that personality for harm.I did my best to soothe her; and as she seemed to shiver with fear and cold, I drew the settee nearer to the fire, and found a warm travelling plaid to fold about her. But after a while the natural bright spirit of her seemed to reassert itself, and she in her turn became the comforter.   "He cannot do us serious harm so long as I keep this perfect," she said, putting her hand to her neck. "I was afraid for the moment it was gone--that he had taken it, and the end had come."I looked as she indicated, and saw she wore round her white throat a necklace of that delicate antique workmanship of which I had before seen specimens recovered from the tombs. There were three chains of gold and silver links, connecting small lozenge-


shaped stones which I think are emeralds; and from the lowest chain hung seven tiny lotus-buds, either carven in carnelian or moulded in some imitating composition." This was given by command of the Oracle, as a pledge of my restoration.  These seven drops are seven spaces of time--whether long or short I know not--the time I have granted me to spend with you. So long as I can keep them I live in the life of this world, were it a hundred years; but when they go I die and am a spirit. While they are safe I am yours.""A hundred years!" I said, jealously.  "Then it will be my fate to die and leave you--perhaps to another!""Not so;" and again as her eyes sought mine, soul met soul for a moment as at first.  "If you go before me, it will be mine to throw the toy away and to follow. It is not my life that will divide us."Ah me! if there is a cloud on my memory, it does not rest over the sayings of that night.  They are clear to me as when first spoken,

as her lovely face is distinct in my remembrance. And yet they would have me believe it was all a fever-vision; that there were no sweet words and looks and vows--no wife, nothing but delusion and a corpse.I could have sat for ever listening to what she had to tell; but in an interval of silence the hall clock struck three, reminding me of the advance of the new day. I thought of the coffee-tray in the next room, and that my dear one, being of this world again, must need food to sustain the new-found life.
There was sweetness in that practical touch, and in the thought that I could serve her; that I, even I, had some one of my own to serve.I left the magic of her presence for long enough to prepare the meal--surely with something sacramental about it, that first meal we were to share: and as I boiled the "ætna" and made it ready, the necessity for other considerations pressed on me. To shield Iras--I will call her at once by the name I gave her later--from the faintest breath of the world's

censure was surely my first duty towards her who trusted me with such childlike confidence, such complete innocence.  I cared little for the world; but in it she was soon, as soon as I could make it possible, to have her assured place as my wife. Never to any one, unless it were to Knollys, could the extraordinary chain of circumstances which brought us together be made known; and even if there were any good woman to whose keeping I could confide her till our marriage could be arranged, I should have feared to surrender her on account of that mysterious spiritual persecution which she so greatly feared, and from which she
seemed to feel safe only with me. To allow her to remain in the G--Street lodgings was out of the question: I seemed at once to see Mrs Mappinbeck's face of outraged virtue, and divine the coarse conclusions she would draw from the presence of such a guest.  I had heard of Scotch marriages, though I confess I knew little about them; and in my perplexity this seemed the best solution of the difficulty in which I found myself. Iras and I

would travel at once to the northern capital, and there, in the speediest manner possible to an easier law, she should be made Mrs Lavenham.I took the tray into the studio with the coffee I had made, and had the delight of seeing her drink it. She ate the biscuits too, though the sandwiches seemed unpalatable to her; and as she sat by the stove with my plaid about her shoulders, warming her pretty feet in their quaint sandals, the sarcophagus--which it seemed already incredible she could ever have occupied--pushed away in the background, a fresh perplexity occurred to me. Her white robe with the loose sleeves, modestly as it was fashioned, was utterly unusual and conspicuous, as well as unsuitable in texture for such a journey as I purposed to take with her-turning our faces northwards at this autumn season.  I noticed how she shivered and drew about her the warm folds of the plaid; and in the midst of trying to
explain the vast changes which had converted the Egypt she remembered into

the Egypt of to-day, I was revolving the problem of how this manifest need could be supplied.I knew nothing of women's fashions; and a less observant person than I of the garments displayed in the streets on the shoulders of passers-by, or set out in the shops for the temptation of purchasers, could hardly be found in the length and breadth of London.  But as I thought over my puzzle, there rose before me, like a mental dissolving view, the front of a certain shop at the corner of Oxford Street. I had been button-holed on that spot, an unwilling victim, by a persistent bore of my acquaintance some day or two previously, and while listening to his strictures on the policy of the Government, I suppose I had stared vacantly through the plate-glass window in front of me. The picture supplied by an involuntary recollection was of a lay-figure equipped in what I think is termed a paletot--a long garment of brown cloth cut for a tall slender figure like that of my dear, and bordered at all its edges with thick glossy fur

which matched the dark tint of the fabric. It was arranged on the frame partly open, so as to show a furred inner lining of grey and white, warm enough and dainty enough for a Russian princess. I remembered that a turban head-gear, also of fur, accompanied the coat; and that a large gilt placard, setting forth the number of guineas for which the garment might be purchased, was displayed against it. This would be what I wanted for Iras, and I resolved to send a cheque for the immediate purchase as soon in the morning as the great emporium would be open.The hours were nearing dawn when I persuaded her to rest, urging the length of the journey which was before us. She laughed, and pleaded she had so lately reopened her eyes upon life that she did not want to waste any of her time in sleep; but finally she laid her head upon the pillow I brought and slept, covered with the plaid, till the first greyness of the morning broadened and brightened into dull daylight."And the evening and the morning were the first day." That fragment of the Mosaic account of Creation floated through my mind not inappropriately; for had I not come upon new heavens and a new earth, and was not all my life created afresh? I could well believe that Zion's message had come also unto me--that my warfare was accomplished, my iniquity pardoned, and with the dark days of my solitude sorrow and sighing had fled away.  To have one belonging to me, depending on me, how sweet the possession!--how welcome the burden which with all loyalty of a glad heart I would carry! Such thoughts were mine as I sat there in the grey dawn, watching my love sleeping profoundly as a child, and
smiling in her sleep as a child might. Her breath was drawn so lightly that more than once I bent over her fearing I knew not what. But all was well; and so, as I wrote before, came up the day.That was a morning full of occupation. I had my things to put hurriedly together for an indefinite absence--letters to write--arrange-

ments to make in preparation. I wrote out a cheque in advance for Mrs
Mappinbeck, and directed my bankers to transfer a certain credit to me
in Edinburgh. I wrote to the publishers for whom I was working,
explaining that it might not be possible for me to keep to the set
terms of the agreement, as failing health and " family affairs "
combined made it imperative I should leave London for a time.  The
forfeiture must be at their option, but I still hoped to have my book
ready early in the new year.  But the letter of which I have clearest recollection was to Knollys. Would he undertake, I wrote to him, to settle certain affairs (which I enumerated) out of the enclosure; and also to telegraph to Skipton at Alexandria that I was "satisfied with the purchase," and that the money might be paid over to Abd-el-Moluk? "You will find the mummy-case in the studio," I wrote, "and I would like a sketch of it made for an illustration as we planned. There is, however, no hurry over immediate completion. I am taking your advice, my dear fellow, about the

needed holiday; but I have imported into it a new element for which you did not calculate.  I am going to be married. Do not be too much surprised until we meet, when I will give you all the particulars I now withhold, and make my wife known to you. I can let you have no certain address for the present, but letters may be sent to the post-office at Edinburgh."Iras spent the morning in the studio, guarded by the locked door and my presence in the outer room. I brought her there a make-shift breakfast from the meal prepared for me, and we made merry over the inconvenience--though without my enlightenment she would have taken it all as natural to our northern manners. Whether our voices were audible I know not, but Mrs Mappinbeck had a suspicious air about her when she came in answer to my summons; the cloudy sky of the day before had not altogether lifted. She received with equanimity the news of my
probable absence and the advance cheque.  Yes, she would see that nothing was disturbed

while I was away, and Mr Knollys should have access as usual to the
studio. Might she inquire, however--very severely--whether she would
be expected to keep that corpse on the premises."That corpse!" I nearly laughed in her face when I thought of Iras; but I contrived to reply soberly, "No, it was not expected of her: in fact, it had been already removed."  Whereupon the latent suspicion became on the instant broadly apparent. I imagine a pretty close watch had been kept on the comings and goings of the house, and Mrs Mappinbeck could have ventured to take her
affidavit that nothing so grisly had been removed from it. No doubt the studio and all the premises were subjected to a strict search as soon as my back was turned, even with scrutiny of the flooring ! But I felt too light-hearted just then to care for suspicion other than what might turn to annoyance for Iras.
I wanted an early luncheon, I told her, and a cab fetched to take me to Euston by two o'clock.  "And prepare the table for

two," I said. "I shall have a friend with me."Iras would be seen to leave the house; and as I was momently expecting the return of my commissionaire messenger with the furred wrapper, I thought I might very well produce her openly at luncheon as a friend who had called in. Mrs Mappinbeck withdrew, still looking unutterable things over the corpse; and the next ring at the bell announced my purchase--my first purchase for my wife's
adornment. Iras was woman enough to care for beauty in garments though the fashion of them might be strange to her; and the warmth and softness of the furs attracted her at once. I know not which of us was the more pleased as I put on the warm coat over her thin Eastern dress, and fastened it from throat to foot. It fitted her to a marvel, and converted her at once from the sculptor's dream she had been previously into the likeness of a woman of fashion. I crowned her
with the fur toque, and brought a glass in which she could see herself. The parcel held

also furred boots to slip on over the bare sandalled feet, warm gloves, and a wrap for the journey.It was a fair reflection that she saw in the glass, and I believe it pleased her, however unfamiliar the array.  But she was more intent on looking her gratitude for what I had given than over any thought of vanity.  "There is one thing I want," she said, timidly, "if people are likely to see me--something to cover my face. I do not want any eye to rest on it but yours."I was proud, and I told her so, for all the world to see it; but she shook her head doubtfully: and I bethought me I had among my possessions a thin gauze veil, which I had formerly used as a precaution against dust and sun-glare in the East. I brought it and she accepted it, still with those grateful eyes, and twisted it deftly round the hat, so as to shade her face without wholly concealing it.Lunch was ready by the time these preparations were complete, and with it Mrs

Mappinbeck hovering about in a state of uneasy curiosity. I think this was at once gratified and increased when I led Iras in, looking like a princess as she did, and seated her at the table. The servant betrayed an unusual inclination to linger and wait on us; but I dismissed her and myself did the honours, admiring the quick way in which my dear caught up the unfamiliar fashions, and the gentle dignity of her bearing. She did not care for meat, and refused the wine I offered her; but she drank water from the clear crystal of the tumbler, which greatly attracted her, and enjoyed some stewed fruit which Mrs Mappinbeck had fortunately added to the repast.Then came the announcement that the cab was at the door. My portmanteau was placed on it, and Mrs Mappinbeck was in the hall when I went out with Iras. "You will find the keys of the studio in the two doors," I said to her, as she curtseyed with her eyes on my companion; and with this valediction

I helped my dear girl into the hansom.  Directly after we were turning out of 
G--Street--prosaic G--Street! which had become all unconsciously the
scene of so strange a romance--in the direction of the northern
train.CHAPTER VI.I WAS glad for my wife's sake that no chance acquaintance happened to be on the platform to witness our departure, and possibly set fire to gossip. Iras was very silent in the noise and roar of the great terminus, but I felt her cling closer to my arm as we entered under its high glass roof, and when the first
fire-breathing monster of an engine passed out before our train was ready to move. She said, as I rejoined her after buying our tickets, "I thought we were going by a river!" an idea no doubt born of her recollection of the Nile,--the great highway of Egypt then, in those far-away years, even as now. And that
silent sliding of river-travel under warmer skies would have been more appropriate for

all we had to say, drawing into closer knowledge each of each, than the throbbing rush of the train and the close-smelling cloth-cushioned carriage in which we were presently shut.The rapid movement seemed at first to affect Iras, and she hid her dizzy eyes against my shoulder; but when I moved her to face the window, and opened it to admit more air, she gradually lost the sensation of giddiness, and became amused by the green landscape flying past us-the moving panorama of fields and woods and streams, churches and hamlets--so widely different from any view she had ever looked upon in the past.  "It is a beautiful world," she whispered more
than once. "I am glad to be alive to see it, and to see it with you."That day's sun went down in glory; the west put on its fairest tints of rose and gold and pearl to receive him, and flushed the floating clouds up towards the zenith with a tint of faint scarlet. Iras and I together watched the deepening and fading of that transfigura-

tion, and she evidently derived from it an observation of our direction, for she presently said in a tone of relief, "Yes, we are going north!""Not very far north, and not for long. You do not fear the cold?""In this warm dress you have given me! ah no. And the farther north the better, were it to the frozen seas. The farther away from him, and from his power."It was curious her association of Savak with everything southern; and I found later on it had become a fixed idea.The afternoon was darkening by the time we halted at Crewe. I wanted her to go with me for some refreshment, but she seemed
afraid of the bustling platform; so I brought her out a cup of coffee to the carriage. We were not disturbed there by intruders--I think the guard had marked us down as probably a bridal couple, despite my grey hair and my shabby coat. But at the next stoppage, which was Preston, an elderly man came running down the platform, bag in hand, after the bell

had rung for departure, wrenched open our carriage door, and was pushed in puffing and breathless, the train being actually in movement. He stumbled past Iras to the farther side of the carriage, and plumped down to recover, presently beginning to swell with triumph over his achievement. "A near thing that, sir," he said, unbuttoning and throwing back his overcoat, and diving into some underpocket for a travelling-cap.I found it difficult to repress a reply the reverse of civil. Iras
shrank back into her corner, and pulled down the veil she had
partially lifted; and a whispered monosyllable now and then was all I
could extract from her during the rest of the journey. I had plenty of
conversation, however, to make up for the lack of hers. Our stout fellow-traveller proved maddeningly communicative, secure in the conviction that his affairs and his experiences must needs be interesting, even to a stranger.  It transpired that we had a mutual acquaintance--a man who formerly held a Syrian consulate, and had the misfortune to be re-

lated to our stout friend; and on the strength of this, midway between Carlisle and Edinburgh, he handed me his card of address.  I reluctantly took it and put it away in an inner division of my pocket-case, and now mention it only because of an after-use which Knollys made it serve. He did not address Iras, as she sat with her face turned away, looking out through her veil as long as there was light to see the barren hill and dale on the outskirts of the Lake District.  But that he did notice her presence I was sure, for after a while he took from his bag an illustrated paper and passed it to me, suggesting that "perhaps it might amuse the lady."  I went through the form  of offering it to her--what she thought it was I know not, but she shook
her head in rejection; so I glanced through it myself, just as a matter of courtesy, before handing it back to the owner.  To see me thus occupied did not stop the conversational torrent, and I had been too engrossed with other matters at our start to care to

provide myself with book or paper of my own.  The man talked on through the long miles and weary hours of that journey, while in began to grow uneasy about Iras, fearing she must be very tired, and picturing to myself how, if only our fellow-traveller would have bestowed himself elsewhere, I could have contrived for her a more restful position, and pillowed her head against my shoulder.The clocks were on the stroke of eleven when at last we glided into the Edinburgh station.  I had telegraphed from Rugby to a hotel I knew by report, to secure rooms and supper; and a porter with the name-badge was on the look-out for us, and seemed surprised to have only my one portmanteau confided to him.
It would be necessary to provide Iras with luggage, that I could see--for the sake of appearances, as well as for the hundred and one things she must need.The rooms had been reserved, and were warmed and lighted--a suite on the second floor; private sitting-room, where supper was presently served to us, and a chamber for Iras

adjoining my own. She promised to call to me if anything happened to alarm her, but in the fact of our having come northwards she seemed to find security; and, content to see her light burning through the partly opened door, I fell asleep myself in the darkness--suddenly aware that I was weary, and that the strain of all those wakeful hours of excitement and action had been great.I wrote our names in the visitors' book next morning--Mr and Mrs
Lavenham. If not a truth, it was very shortly to become one; and,
leaving Iras at the hotel, I set out to find that necessary factor in
what we had to do--a respectable lawyer. I had run my eye down the
hotel directory, and picked out an address by chance; and it was as I
turned out of Princes Street into one of the numerous intersections at right angles, inquiring my way to it, that it suddenly struck me I must be prepared to give my wife a name.I wished then it had occurred to me earlier, so that I might have consulted with her what name she would bear; but I would not now

make delay by a return, and that my decision would have ruled hers I knew.    It was necessary for me to invent a maiden surname as well as the familiar prefix; and probably some boyish recollection of Shakespeare grafted itself on to the idea of her nationality, by suggesting the names of the great queen's handmaidens in "Antony and Cleopatra." She should be Iras Charmian as a preliminary to her conversion into Iras Lavenham.Mr James Macpherson, Writer to the Signet, was an elderly man with a conical bald head, very Scotch and somewhat laconic. He was engaged with a client on my arrival, and for half an hour or more I had to devour my impatience as best I might, gazing out at the interval of broad street and the cold-looking grey stone houses over the way. At last the clerk called my name. I was shown in to tell my errand, and. I thought a faint surprise evidenced itself on the attentive countenance addressed to me from the other side of the table. I suppose I did not look the part."If understand you rightly, Mr--Lavenham,"--he glanced again at my card
to refresh his memory,-"you wish me to advise you on the contracting of an irregular marriage.""By no means," I interrupted. "My anxiety is that all should be on a completely regular and legal basis.""Certainly, certainly:" he waved aside my lay ignorance with some
impatience. "The legal term for a marriage of the kind you mean is an irregular marriage, but it is perfectly valid in law. The lady will be as safe your wife as if you were married in all the kirks and by all the ministers in the land.  I suppose the lady is of age?""Yes," I said. That particular at least I could affirm absolutely."You will just have to make a declaration before me--which I will draw out for your signatures, yours and the lady's both, and the signatures of two witnesses here in my presence.  Then you go along to the sheriff-substitute, you and the lady together, and

he signs the declaration. Then you go to the registrar and get a stamped copy; but the lady need not go with you there unless she likes.""And can this be done to-day?"  The man of law raised his eyebrows and deliberately consulted a pale-faced elderly watch. " Hardly to - day," he said. "Lord Stair's factor is coming at the half-hour; and by the time I have the declaration ready, and you have brought the lady--I conclude she is not here now?--you will not be likely to find the sheriff-substitute at his chambers.  I
will make an appointment for to-morrow morning; and you can come here first at
10.30, if that will be convenient--you and the lady."I had hoped to carry the thing through immediately, but the few hours' delay
was no great matter; so I signified acquiescence.Mr Macpherson adjusted his spectacles, spread a sheet of paper before him, dipped a pen in the ink and held it suspended."You will now," he said, "give me the particulars.""Certainly. I suppose you mean our respective names. Ralph Lavenham, bachelor; and Iras Charmian, spinster; both of age.""Not so fast, my dear sir; not so fast. Ralph  Lavenham, bachelor.   Aged what, and of what address?""Thirty-nine. Of G--Street, London, number 46.""Parents' names?""Son of the late Thomas Lavenham and Mary Priscilla his wife."This opened my eyes to what was about to follow in the case of Iras. I gave her age as twenty-two, which I thought would most nearly accord with her appearance.  The question of address was puzzling, and in despair I said Luxor, Egypt, as having been the locality of the tomb." Parents' names? " again inquired the man of law, with another glance at his watch--I was evidently trespassing on the next appointment."Daughter of Khames Charmian. I do not know the mother's personal name, but
both are dead. Is it essential to give it?""Preferable--preferable, not essential; but it can be inserted to-morrow. That will be sufficient. I wish you good day."He struck a hand-bell on the table, and the factor's entrance and my exit were simultaneous.I had to tell Iras that the ceremony was postponed till next day; and as the weather was fine and clear, I hired a carriage and took her for a drive through the Old Town and the familiar round of Arthur's Seat. It was delightful to me to watch her bright ready interest in all she saw, and to explain to willing ears much it was necessary she should know about the present era.   In returning I made the driver set us down at the end of Princes Street, and we walked the length of it together, past the rows of shining shops which attracted her curiosity.  I wanted her to accompany me into some

of them, that we might purchase together what was necessary for her outfit; but she shrank with such timidity from the proposal that I did not press it.  "I know nothing about the things that the women of this land have and wear," she said to me in explanation; "and I cannot speak your language to strangers, though I can speak to you.  Tell one of these merchants to send what is needful to make me appear as you wish, but not in extravagance. This must have been costly, I am sure, it is so beautiful;" and she touched the fur on her breast.So on this expedition also I set forth alone. I had hardly appreciated the full difficulties and embarrassments of my task, till I found myself, the only male creature in a warehouse given over to women's needs, struggling to explain to the astonished face of the lady presiding over the establishment that I wanted a ready-made outfit for my wife. I described her as an invalid and a
foreigner, unable to enter upon the business

for herself.  Proposals were made, as a matter of course, that specimens should be submitted for the invalid lady's selection; but this I was obliged to negative, knowing it would distress and bewilder Iras. Therefore it remained for me to wade as best I could through the printed lists and estimates laid before me, bristling as they were with unknown items, amongst which I felt myself utterly incompetent to decide.  The presiding lady compassionately advised me
on some points: I think my ignorance and my anxiety must secretly have caused her great amusement. The question of quality was easier--cambric and embroidery and lace would be more suited to my darling's dainty beauty than plain calico; so I ended, as a matter of course, by putting my name to an alarming cheque.I was asked for measurements, but could give none; and as a compromise indicated one of the shop-servers--a tall girl all bones and angles, as unlike Iras as possible--as being about my wife's height and size. The

dresses were a further difficulty; though an amber tea-gown of shimmering Indian silk, and a white dressing robe with an inner lining of pale rose, were comparatively easy of selection.  I made some purchases in serge and homespun: the dinner and ball costumes pressed on me I negatived altogether for the present.  I stipulated that shoes should be included, and that the whole should be packed in a couple of serviceable travelling trunks and sent to Mrs Lavenham at the address I gave.  And then with a gasp of relief I found myself free of the bewildering place and under the October sky.I had two more errands to discharge before returning. One was the
purchase of a certain gold ring for use on the morrow; the other, the selection of a travelling-bag with the usual toilet fittings.  A boy-messenger carried the bag beside me to the hotel; and it is another memory of that day how I displayed its contrivances to Iras, and watched her pleasure in them

--the silver-backed brushes and mirrors, the scent-bottles and powder-pots, 
and--wonder greater than all--the tiny repeating-clock which fitted a case in the centre.  The trunks were not long in following: Iras dined in her tea-gown that night, and arrayed herself in grey homespun the morning of her wedding-day.The things once there, it seemed to come to her by nature how to wear them: there was nothing, save her uncommon beauty and grace, to distinguish her from an ordinary English girl. But I knew that on her throat, under silk and serge alike, the mysterious necklace kept its place and was never for an instant unclasped.If this narrative should ever fall into other hands than mine, it may be wondered why I should dwell on so trivial a matter as the purchase of the outfit when so dark a cloud hung in the future. But I write to preserve the memory of our pleasure in it, and the joy it was to me to see it used and worn, as used and worn it was, despite after-evidence.I have another remembrance of that evening, the eve of our wedding, which is also sweet to me,--the remembrance of how I taught Iras to write her name in preparation for the morrow. I can see her now, with the laughter in her eyes and on her lips, and the flush on her soft cheek, setting herself to copy the bold letters I had written out--first with them placed before her, and afterwards from memory. There were mistakes at first, of course, over which we laughed anew; but ere long she had her lesson perfect, for she was in all things very apt to learn.I kissed her hand as I took the pen from it--I would not touch her lips till she was mine; and, still holding it, I said, "There was one piece of information the lawyer asked me for, which I could not give.  It was your mother's name. I knew your father's."Her face changed to an older and graver face on the instant-it was always so when there was any allusion to the past; and the

fair brow took on a furrow, as if with the effort of memory. "The name was Suten-Mertetefs," she said.  "I have heard my father say so, but I do not remember her.  She was a king's daughter, and she died when I was born."I took a card from my pocket and pencilled it down on the reverse side, ready for Mr Macpherson. So she was royally descended, my princess who had fallen on such a poor alliance in these latter days! I could well believe it, for that proud little head was noble enough to have carried the crown of all the Pharaohs.The morning when it came was all sunshine as a good omen for the bride, though the air was keen and ground crisped with a touch of early frost: there were rumours of snow already on the northern hills. It was a bright face I saw opposite me at the breakfast neither of us greatly cared to eat; and presently my wife came back, arrayed in her furs, to rejoin me in the sitting-room. "You are content to take me, Iras!" I said to her before we

started, "poor as I am, and not young to match your youth!""Content and glad--my lord, my love," she answered, whispering the addition so low that I barely caught it, and dropping before mine the eyes which told too much.I had no words to thank her, but there was no happier man that day in all Scotland than I, as I passed out into the street with her hand upon my arm.I believe a certain amount of curiosity prevailed in Mr Macpherson's office over the bride, for in the comings and goings during our few minutes of detention, what must have been his whole staff of clerks went in and out
of the anteroom.   Iras had veiled herself closely, but the perfect figure and the big knot of hair were sufficiently conspicuous attractions, and the curiosity was evidently replaced by admiration.Mr Macpherson had set a special chair for her, and came forward with his best smile; and she responded to the introduction gracefully, though in silence. There was the inser-

tion of the missing name to be added to the document lying on the table, the old lawyer copying from my pencilling with some query as to spelling; and then he glanced at me over the top of his spectacles."You have not provided yourselves with the witnesses I spoke of?""No.  I thought they might be supplied from among your staff.""Quite so-as you wish it. But it is more usual--and perhaps agreeable--to have friends of the contracting parties. However, I shall be willing to serve for one of them, and"--striking the bell-" Elliott, send Mr Miles to us--Mr Miles will be the other."Mr Miles had been one of the investigators in the outer office, and--perhaps with a sense of his misdeeds on his head--he looked from me to Iras, and from Iras to me, and blushed all over his pale forehead as his principal
beckoned him forward."I will now, with your permission, madam, read over the declaration before the signatures are affixed." Iras glanced at me, and I laid

my hand on her shoulder as I stood beside her, so that my understanding of it could supplement hers. My signature came first, and then I handed the pen to Iras. She raised her veil a little, only a little--I do not think either of the men present succeeded in seeing her face--and traced in a rather trembling but legible hand the signature I taught her the night before.Mr Macpherson and Mr Miles signed after us, and then-an open carriage having been called and kept in waiting--the former accompanied us to the sheriff-substitute. He made one or two gallant remarks enroute to the bride, and as I held her hand she understood them sufficiently to attempt some faint word of reply; in her position a certain shyness was excusable. The official we visited must also have thought her rather silent; but he looked a very open admiration when, at the close of the proceedings, he offered his congratulations to Mrs Lavenham, and shook hands with us both. Mr Macpherson preferred to walk back to his office instead of driving with us to the

registrar's; and there Iras sat in the carriage while I went in alone, presently issuing, the possessor of an elaborately printed and stamped blue paper filled in with clerkly writing--the marriage-lines which proved Iras my wife.I told the driver to take us out through the suburbs--any direction would be pleasant that bright breezy morning; and with his face safely turned in the direction of his steed, my wife and I could feel ourselves alone. Presently, when we were out in the more open roads, I saw her furtively uncover her
hand to look again at the broad band of gold on the marriage-finger. And then with gentle insistance she pressed something into mine.It was a ring I had noticed on her hand from the first-a tiny figure of the royal asp in gold, together with a gem which I believe is called an asteria, really a flawed sapphire, with a minute glistening star of white filaments
in the centre of the stone. "It is the star of hope," she said, "and it must never set for you and me." She tried to pass it on the finger corresponding to that on which I had

placed her ring, but mine was too large and rough, and the little finger alone would receive it."You have given me so much, Ralph, my husband, that you will in your turn take this from me."Ah, my darling! I wear it there to this day with your marriage-ring above it; but our star has set as regards this world, and gone down in utter night. But I am beginning to know there is another firmament where still it shines serene, and when I pass beyond these voices it may be indeed from dark to dawn.CHAPTER VII.IT is said that the nation is happy which has no history; and for the first seven days following our marriage my history is only that we were happy. There was not a cloud in the sky, even of the size of a man's hand, to forecast the coming tempest of clouds and wind: no prophet sat for us on the top of Carmel. On the day after that of which I have written we travelled to Melrose, in the valley of the Tweed and under the Eildon Hills; and there the last sands of October dropped away out of the glass of Time, and November came in with so soft a grace and so warm a smile that we could well believe ourselves in earlier autumn.We found sufficiently good accommodation

at the inn, and a carriage we could hire for our own use without being encumbered by a driver. Sometimes we trod the beaten track of sight-seers, but oftener wandered at will where the fancy of the moment led us, or the greater solitude proved a temptation. Those three cleft summits rise again on the horizon of my dreams, and that brawling river runs once more at my feet: I linger now over the blessed remembrance of the happy hours they witnessed--shrinking from what I have to tell of the beginning of anguish, the first chill touch of that advancing shadow of eclipse.  I did not wholly forget my work while we were making holiday; and to find Iras profoundly interested in all which concerned it was a delight the more. She was never weary of hearing how we laboured in the excavations, and of the treasures of antiquity restored to light, and the theories deduced from them. Touching these she--an eyewitness of that remote past--had much to say, both in
correction and confirmation; and I began to note down various matters to be incorporated

in the book. I was busied in this way the evening of the seventh day after our marriage, Iras sitting by. She had been singing to me some verses of the flower-invocation song of which I had spoken (the rescued papyrus is now in the British Museum, but in her day it was familiar as our street music). After the song I had a history of the yearly festival at the great Theban temple, when the sacred boats made their pilgrimage; telling of a ludicrous incident that occurred in the last year of her remembrance, which was held to be ominous by the common people.I was jotting down the lines of argument designed for my new chapter when her head sank on my shoulder with a sigh. Thinking she was tired with a long day in the fresh air--we had spent the afternoon at Dryburgh--I put my left arm round her to hold her supported, going on meanwhile with my notes, and presently bent my cheek against her soft hair, which always had about it some kind of flower-fragrance. I know not how it was that a sudden disquietude thrilled through

me with that touch, but I lifted her face and looked at it.  It was quite wan, the eyelids closed and sunk, the whole appearance more of death than sleep: she seemed hardly to breathe. Much alarmed, I laid her down on the sofa, chafed her hands, and called for brandy--reproaching myself for letting her over-tax that newly returned strength and vitality which it was difficult to measure. But before the brandy could be brought she had revived enough to look at me with a
puzzled dreamy expression, and she gently put it away when I held it to her lips. It was not for some minutes that full intelligence seemed to return; and then terror came with it, for she clung to me with all her strength."Ralph--Ralph, hold me! do not let me go! They were taking me away."I soothed her as well as I could, and assured her that she was
safe. No one could touch her in my arms--what did she mean?For a while she was too much agitated

to explain, but at last she whispered with her face hidden, "I was there again --in the temple of the Oracle, and he stood by with his claim.  I was crying to the high God to release me, and to save me pure for the lord of my heart; and the answer was, to achieve that I must die.  Not go down alive into the grave as aforetime, but away through the great gate of death and the judgment of the balance. That I must leave you on earth, my beloved, if I would be for ever yours.""It was a dream, Iras.  We had been talking of the old scenes and the old ways, and your mind went back to them--that was all. You are here with me, I hold you in my arms; there is no death, no danger. It was nothing but a dream.""Would that I could think so," she sobbed. "I am afraid--I am afraid. And oh! I cannot leave you, my love, my lord!"Her nerves seemed thoroughly shaken, whatever had been the cause. I
persuaded her to go to rest, for indeed it was already

late; and I sat by her and held her hand till she slept. When her even breathing assured me of this, I stole back to the sitting-room to put together the papers that strewed the table, at which I had been at work earlier in the evening. I lingered glancing over them to modify a phrase here, and there jot down a forgotten detail; but the current of idea was broken, and I felt too much vague anxiety about my wife to settle back to sustained effort. The shabby inn parlour, which had been transfigured by her presence, looked empty and garish now this charm was withdrawn. I folded away my MSS. in the despatch-box, turned out the gas which flared above the table, and then, attracted by some suggestion of moonlight at the window, drew aside the curtain and looked out.Another pen than mine has perfected for ever a wonderful night picture of the grand old abbey; and from that window I looked upon the shadow side, silhouetted against a starry sky. The spell of Scott's recollected verse filled my mind, and no other thought;

but this was disturbed by a widely different and unwelcome suggestion. Something, human or animal, was stirring in the dense shade under the walls: no form was visible, nothing but vague movement between the buttresses and among the grassy hillocks of the graves.  I dropped the curtain and drew back, in-
voluntarily recalling a certain night experience at the window of a Brighton hotel, and then smiled at my own faulty nerve and folly in entertaining the idea.Later in the night I woke suddenly in the abrupt change of an uneasy dream. Iras was sleeping peacefully, and all was still. No light burnt in the chamber; but the window was thinly shaded, and a flood of moonlight poured in across the bed, illuminating the opposite wall.  I lay looking at this, and revolving sundry conjectures and recollections, when I saw a shadow projected on this space of light. It was the shadow of a man standing at the bedside and stooping
forward, and at the same instant I heard my wife moan. I sprang up--the shadow

had disappeared, and there was no visible substance to account for it having been there.  The small room was in silence and solitude, the door fastened as I had left it, the window undisturbed. Iras was still asleep.I lay down again softly so as not to disturb her; and until the moon set and the light faded I watched the brightness on the wall.  But no shadow crossed it a second time, and at last I slept also, dream-haunted by a conviction that the form in silhouette on the wall was identical with the phantom persecution before my marriage, the Egyptian priest who wore the crocodile on his breast on the beach at Brighton,--Savak, servant of Sebek, the ancient suitor of Iras.The fears of the night took on insignificant proportions in the prosaic light of a November morning.  A chill white fog had stolen up from the river, and was blurring the prospect outside the window of the dressing-room; pails and pattens were clinking on the yard pavement underneath; a horse was led clatter-

ing out of the stable.  I was contemplating the unpromising outside world when another sound broke on my ear--a cry from my wife's room.   She was standing before the glass, her white robe open at the throat, round which I could see the glitter of her necklace. Her gaze was riveted in pale horror on her own reflection."I have lost it," she said, in a tone of acute distress. "O Ralph, it is gone!"Not the necklace, as it still clasped her throat; but she pointed to the lower chain, and then I saw that only six lotus pendants hung from it instead of the full number of seven.I shared her concern at the loss, knowing the superstitious value she placed on this ornament; but I made the natural suggestion it might be found in the bed or about the room, and proceeded to search for it.  She looked on, and even assisted me, in the faint hope I might be right; but when our effort failed it did not surprise her. "It has been taken from me in the night--I am sure

of it. It was safe when I took off my dress; I looked for it at once, remembering the vision, and counted the buds. Ah, Ralph, if he has power to tear it from me now that I am with you, when and where can I be safe! Is this his revenge? They will be taken from me one by one, and then I must die."It seemed a wild idea, and I strove to combat it and reassure her; but at the same time I remembered with a shudder what I had seen in the moonlight--the shadow of the man at the bedside, stooping over the pillow where she lay. The little ornament seemed to have been wrenched away from the metal wire which suspended it, as a fragment of the composition still remained, as if broken short. All the other pendants were firm and perfect. It went to my heart to see her sweet face so pale and sad; and when at breakfast she urged that we should leave the place, I caught at the proposal, hoping that change of scene would divert her mind and remove any morbid impression caused by the loss.

"It is not that I want to go--we have been so happy here, and all is so beautiful; but I shall never feel safe again where he has become strong. Do you mind very much, Ralph, if we go away?"No, I said, I thought it was the best thing we could do. I had planned a whole month's holiday, returning to London at the beginning of December, and it had never been my intention to spend it in one place. I wanted to show her the West Coast, which is mild even in winter: we would return at once to Edinburgh, and arrange next day for a journey beyond.I spoke as cheerfully and confidently as I could, and said nothing of the Shadow; but I too felt relieved I had not to look for it on that moonlit wall through the wakeful watches of another night. We would leave by the mid-day train; and I rang to order the bill and a carriage to the station, and helped her to put together the pretty novelties of possession strewed about over her toilet-table, of which she was so proud.Her smile came back, and a faint colour to her cheek, as the train moved out of the station and the last houses of the little town fell away in the distance. I think throughout the journey we both had the feeling that we were fugitives, and were glad when stately stone-built Edinburgh closed about us once more. We chose a different hotel for our one night's sojourn--this at Iras's suggestion;
and while she rested I bethought me I would go to the post-office and see if any letters had been sent from London.I had to prove identity by a receipted bill and a card, and then a couple of envelopes were hunted up out of a dusty pigeon-hole and handed to me across the counter. One was a mere cover for some unimportant enclosures, the other the letter I thought would come from Knollys."You have indeed taken me by surprise," he wrote. "I had no idea there was a lady in the case, or that you were keeping back from me so great a secret. I wish you joy,

my dear Lavenham, and trust you are as happy as I hope some day to be with Madge.  Let me know when you are returning to London, and if there is anything I can do for you in the meantime. I shall be glad to see you back, even as Benedick the married man, and though I fear my old bachelor crony will be transformed beyond recognition.  But I hope you will not cut short the change
and rest you were greatly needing, through any mistaken idea of the obligation of returning to work.  I have been to No. 46 G--Street, and made two drawings of the mummy-case; you can have your choice of them on return. I was not quite satisfied with my first effort. Seeing it had been unfastened, I took the liberty of looking within, and own to some curiosity to know how you disposed of the mummy. I telegraphed as you directed to Skipton, so of course you had made the examination you talked of. Adamson the expert came round about it, and said you had arranged with him to do the analysis, and also to take

charge of the thing itself, as your landlady objected to keep it at
the lodgings; but I was obliged to tell him it was gone, and I had no
instructions.  Mrs Mappinbeck is queerer than ever. I asked her about
it--naturally; and I believe she thinks it is concealed on the
premises. She hinted she was disappointed in you--that you had not
behaved as she expected. You gave her your word as a gentleman it
should be taken away, and she can declare it' never went out of the
house after it came in--not unless you took it with you among your
luggage. Not very likely, is it, that you would travel about with such
an encumbrance on a bridal tour! Write to me at the old shop and clear up all these points--that is, if you like, otherwise they can stand over till we meet. Mrs Mappinbeck tells me a very grand lady in splendid furs lunched with you the day you left, and that you went away together: I conclude this would be the present Mrs Lavenham? The season keeps wonderfully mild, but do you not find it cold so far away north ? Whatever made you

elect to go to Scotland so late in the season?--Yours, &c."I folded up the letter and put it in safe keeping. I fully intended to answer it in the course of a day or two; but first procrastination and then increasing anxiety caused delay, and the reply remained unwritten to the end.We left Edinburgh next day for Greenock, and there took one of the Clyde steamers down the firth to Largs. It was a foggy early morning as we crossed the country from east to west; but on entering the environs of Glasgow a yellow glow broke out through the hanging smoke above the busy city, and by the time the train arrived at Greenock pier the mists had lifted and the waters of the firth were sparkling in the sun.The scene seemed to interest and delight Iras more than anything she had yet witnessed--the heaving water, the shipping, the open docks, the line of blue hills to the west, and the churning paddle-wheels as we set out. She was so intent on looking about her

that she forgot to draw her veil closely as usual, and a couple of
men, who passed and repassed us up and down the deck with their
cigars, looked at her with evident admiration, which it amused me to
witness. She was unconscious of annoyance from it, or of anything but
the wonderful new world and the ways of the great deep-resting with a
child's confidence on my power to explain and make clear every perplexity.The sea-trip to Largs is not a long one, and, November as it was, the air on the water was not chill; fortunately the day was one of still weather. I wanted Iras to have an extra wrap, but she was warm--quite warm, she assured me, in her fur coat, and only sorry when we drew alongside the wooden landing-stage to go on shore. The little place in a nook of hills, with its clustered houses along the beach, looked almost as remote from worldly disturbance as in the days when
it was said that you went "out of Scotland into Largs." I had no recommendation to quarters, so we left our baggage at the pier-

head and went on a prospecting expedition along the line of town.Now here occurs the first serious confusion of memory. When I revisited the place with Knollys I could not identify the house where we stayed. The name of the people also has escaped me; and it is of the greater moment because, as it happened, Iras made friends with the woman, and she could have borne effectual testimony to her reality. I only know that for some reason or other we dis-
liked the appearance of the hotel; and, farther on beyond, we came upon a house close down upon the beach, with an attractive bow-window, in which was displayed the placard of apartments.  It looked clean and bright, and the idea of being so near the wonder and variety of the sea delighted Iras, the waves breaking within a stone's throw of us. So we rang the bell, and were answered by a pleasant matronly-looking person, whose face I remember to this day, though her name is
a blank to me.We took the rooms--a parlour on the

ground-floor and bed and dressing-room above--and were the only lodgers; but the house was not a very still one, as the patter of children's feet went about it out of school-hours, with a sound of merry voices which the mother-mistress was always trying to keep in check. I think the woman's husband was something in the seafaring line; but whether this was conjecture on account of his absence, or an ascertained fact, I cannot now be sure. It was to this woman Iras made some timid advances in the speech that halted to others, though to me it flowed without a check: the children, of whom we caught occasional glimpses, were the attraction, and any manifestation of interest in them pleased the mother.Some of the events of our stay I have clearly enough in memory, though the cloud rests over others. I remember well a showery afternoon when I had been abroad alone on some trifling errand, and on returning found Iras gone from the sitting-room. I drew a chair to the fireside, waiting for her--faintly

uneasy, as I was apt to be when my one treasure was out of sight--when
I heard a ripple of musical laughter and a child's crowing shout in the passage, and Iras entered--flushed with delighted triumph, her eyes shining, her lips apart, and a big baby of eighteen months old carried in her arms."See what I have here, Ralph; and he likes me--he will come to me--he is not afraid!"It was not wonderful that he should like her--at least I thought not. I never saw her look lovelier than when she sat down opposite with the baby on her 
knee--a pretty child, it is true, with big dark eyes a little like her own. It was not a bit shy of her, but crowed and clutched its fingers in her hair; and she laughed tenderly over it with genuine woman's delight--especially when the little fellow shrank away from my bearded face as I bent near the pair, and hid against her breast.  Ah me! if one day-one day-a child of mine could have come to fill her arms! but it was not to be.The landlady presently made her appear-

ance, laughing also and apologetic. She was afraid Teddy would tire
the lady; but it was "just wonderful" the fancy he had taken--he
was accustomed to be shy with strangers: and it was evident Teddy's
favour was considered as a special boon. Mrs Lavenham was "real kind,"
she said to me more than once in the days that followed--whether few
or many I can hardly now tell; days during which I often saw Iras
playing with the big baby when we were kept perforce indoors.  But if
more uncertain than at Melrose, the weather favoured us on the whole:
I can recall strolls along the beach road either way, and drives to
the higher level at the back; views of the mountains about Loch
Striven to the north-west, and Cumbrae and Arran to the south-in
sunshine and mist and driving showers, and sometimes with a gleam of  snow whiteness on the alpine outline of the Arran hills.That whiteness of snow-peak would have been to most people a danger-signal to flee away southwards; but I knew Iras felt herself

safer in this northern region, and it would be time enough to think
about London at the expiration of my holiday.  Since that night at
Melrose she had never voluntarily led the conversation to her past
life in Egypt, though she was always ready with a reply when I
appealed to her. One afternoon when we were returning from a walk, I
noticed she was unusually silent, and had drawn close to me, slipping her hand under my arm. I asked if she was tired, but she said no; and then, as I still looked inquiry, presently there came confession."I have been thinking to-day of him; you know who I mean. I have felt afraid again, as I did at Melrose,--as if his power were closing about me, and his hand stretching out to touch me once more. When first we came here I felt so free--in the midst of clear air and safety; but now it seems to be thickening and darkening again, as if the end were close upon me. What shall I do?"I gave such counsel as I could--to turn her mind to other matters, and not dwell on

a fancied danger. I would not own that I shared her fear. We would grow old together, I told her, and the end was far away yet, even from me."I wish I could think it," she said; and, the road being solitary, she clasped her other hand upon my arm and touched my shoulder with her cheek. "It will be death indeed, and more than death, to leave you, O my dearest; but it is borne in on me more and more clearly that our happiness is not for long. But I have much to be thankful for.  I have been preserved to see you face to face; and, as it says in the flower-song, 'An hour passed with thee is worth a space of eternity!' I have no right to complain."Words such as these would bring a sudden stricture to my heart. I know not how I replied, protesting there should be no parting--I would not, could not, let her go. A change of scene had before removed the impression; we would leave Largs as we left Melrose, and would be up and away on the morrow.This was tacitly agreed between us; but soon after our return to the lodgings, Iras came to me as I stood at the window watching the light already fading in the west. "Do not say anything about going away to Mrs---- to-night. Little Teddy is ill, and she is in trouble about him, and very anxious."The baby was ill indeed, with one of those short sharp seizures of croup which are so hazardous to frail young lives. Through the night my wife could not be persuaded to rest, but sat up with the mother, anxious almost as she; while I waited about with masculine incapacity for help, except as a messenger for the doctor should he be needed. When the crisis was abating the child grew restless, and struggled from his mother's arms to Iras, seeming easier as she carried him to and fro in his warm wrappings, raised against her shoulder. I feared she would exhaust herself, but she was too happy in having won ease to the little patient to think of her own fatigue; and she paced to and fro in the lowered light, while the mother made ready

a warm bed and emptied the bath which had been used in the height of the attack. This went on long after the first exhausted dose had deepened into real sleep; but at last we persuaded her to lay him down. As she gently lowered him into his nest of blankets, and the small chubby hands left her neck, there was a slight crack as of something broken.I saw my wife put up her hands as soon as they were free, in sudden
anxiety for the necklace. She was wearing a dressing-gown which had
fallen undone at the throat, and as she carried the child cradled
against her, he must have grasped one of the lotus pendants; for, as
she turned significantly to show me, another was missing. "Not lost," I said; and with as light a touch as I could contrive, I opened the curled-up baby fingers and took out the tiny ornament. The little fellow still slept, so I drew her away from the mother's thanks into our own room, where she too could rest."It is nothing but an accident this time

--no omen at all. We will find a jeweller to repair the broken wire, and I can put it back in its place for you myself. My dear Iras, do not look so concerned.""It will be taken-I am sure of it. The virtue has gone out of it.""It cannot be taken if I put it in safe custody, as I will show you." I unlocked the despatch-box, and taking out a tiny case of buffalo-horn, which I had been accustomed to use for steel pens and which had been with me in all my wanderings, I shook out the contents, folded the lotus ornament in a sheet of fresh paper, and laid it within, turning the key upon it. "I have faith in a Chubb lock," I said to her. "Your trinket is safe this time, my darling; you need not trouble about it any more."I thought she looked weary and anxious next morning, more than the hours of watching would warrant.  Little Teddy was better, and we arranged with the mother to leave the day after, crossing to Rothesay by the steamer.  When setting out for our walk,

I suggested we should call at the jeweller's about the repair of the
pendant, and confidently produced my despatch-box and the key. There
was the little case of buffalo-horn, it is true, and its lining of
folded paper; but no pendant lay within.  The paper held a little heap
of fine dust, into which the thing had doubtless perished by some agency beyond my power to define.
CHAPTER VIII.THE next stage of our pilgrimage was Rothesay; and there, as in every fresh
place, there was at first the feeling of freedom, of escape and a
temporary safety, and then there gradually darkened down upon my wife,
and to my perception also in a degree, the same foreboding of a
threatened danger. But we could at times forget and be happy. There
rises again before me in sweet remembrance one clear starlight evening
when I walked with Iras on the quay, the lamps and windows of the town
a semicircle on one side of us, while on the other the lights of the
anchored shipping were duplicated in the dark water. The fresh breeze
had a salt taste on our lips, and below us against the shore

the wash of unseen waves made a cadenced
undertone in the stillness.It was, I think, the fourth day of our sojourn.  I had inquired
about one or two expeditions into the interior of the island, and, as
we paced up and down on the seawall, I told her what we were going to
see, and why these places were thought of interest --some fragment of
the long roll of the world's history which had written itself in
achievement and suffering while she lay asleep in her rock-tomb in the
cliffs beyond Luxor.We were to set out after breakfast if the day proved fine; and I went down in the morning to see what might be the hotel capabilities of providing a carriage. I was absent only half an hour; but when I returned I found my wife full of distress and excitement, and with my big portmanteau and her trunk before her, rapidly laying in the things which had been removed."Can we get ready in time for the steamer?" she said to me. "Don't ask me why, Ralph, but I dare not stay here    

any longer. You will not be angry, I know--you will help me to get away."Whatever had happened in my short absence had greatly alarmed and distressed her--that was evident: she shook her head when I asked about the necklace, and I would not press any question when I saw how much she trembled, and that tears were difficult to restrain. The Fate before which we fled had overtaken us for the third time--so much was clear; and we had no choice but again to flee before it. There was time and to spare to get ready for the steamer, which called at noon; and as it happened we were on the quay nearly an hour before its arrival, as it was considerably after time. There was the scene of our walk the evening before, looking far more prosaic in cold daylight than under that enchantment of night and stars; the lovely mountain view opposite was now hiding itself in gradually advancing mist, which presently drizzled down on us in chilly rain. Conditions had changed for the worse. I stood with Iras on the edge

of the pier, holding her arm and feeling her shiver with distress far more than cold, as we strained our eyes for the first glimpse of the steamer round the point; and I confess my heart sank within me, failing for the first time before the horror of this intangible persecution--this enemy who struck in the dark, against whom I was powerless either to avenge myself or to protect her.She said she would rather not come under shelter--"if I did not mind"--she would rather wait in the open and the air. A few people lounged about on the pier--one or two handbarrows with luggage stood ready for the boat beside our own; but the autumn tourist stream had long ago been diverted to the south, and the traffic to and from the Bute seaport was not great. "I am safer here than within walls," she said presently--"at least I fancy so. But there will not be any safety till we are away.""Can you tell me now, Iras, what it was that alarmed you at the hotel?""I ought to have told you then--when you

asked me first; but the terror was so great and unexpected, and I was afraid of worse harm following--to you and to us both. Yes, I will tell you. I shall have courage to tell you now, for surely that is the ship."The line of smoke against the sky, the gleam of red funnels far off in the rain, marked indeed the advent of the deliverer; and as we stood together watching its advance my wife told her story."I went to the bedroom for the book you are teaching me to read--the one with the pictures, and the double alphabet you wrote out in the beginning; and I had just taken it from the dressing-table when I felt all at once faint and giddy and terrified--like a bird feels when the snake is looking at it before it darts: you have seen that in these days as I used to see it in the time long ago. The room changed about me, although I had the book firm in my hand to remind me who I am now, and where; and I was wearing this Englishwoman's dress that you have given me, which belongs to the present, not the past.

Instead of the bedroom, it was like a hall with pillars--and gods and kings on the walls, and written words that were terrible. And there before me among the pillars, unchanged, implacable, commanding, he was looking at me as the snake looks at the bird----""Don't go on now, my darling. Wait and tell me later if it distresses you so much.""I thought I was lost--I thought I had seen you for the last time.  I put both my hands to my throat to cover the necklace, and turned to rush away from him. But what seemed an opening in the court between the Osirides was no opening really. I struck myself against the wall--the real wall of the room--and fell on the floor. I was half stunned, I believe, for the blow was a heavy one.""You are hurt, then, and I did not know it! ""There is a bruise, I think, but it does not matter. I was glad of it then, for it seemed a deliverance. The temple was gone --the eyes that compelled me were gone--

and there I was in the bedroom with your coat lying over the chair. I took it and hid my face in it till I was calmer; it seemed to bring me nearer to you--to you and safety. But I knew the time had come for us to go; for he had gathered power against me, and would use it without mercy."The steamer came gliding in against the pier, the gangways were pushed over, the bell rang for us to go on board. I said what I could to comfort her as we sat together on the sheltered side of the deck, and I held my umbrella to screen her from the rain, which now poured faster.   But she knew, alas! and I was learning to know also, that there was little comfort to give or to be taken except in the knowledge we were still together --that, strong as our foe might be against us, the final stroke of parting had not come.A third pendant was gone; but whether the loss was discovered when next Iras opened her dress, or later, I cannot now be sure. My recollection is also vague of a night and a day passed at Ardrishaig, and of posting

on from there by two stages to Sonachan on  Loch Awe. I remember Sonachan, and the glassy beauty of the great lake with the peaked mountain at its head--the dark mirror of the water reflecting the burning reds and browns of the autumn foliage not yet fallen. The sunshine favoured us again here, and lit up the withered fern and heather on the lower hillsides and the barren rocks above with a golden glow. There was a charm in the still remoteness, the profound peace, unbroken as it seemed by either tides or storms in those dark depths of liquid blackness over which the boat glided so smoothly. For we hired a boat, and I took Iras on the loch the afternoon we arrived, and again the day following. The air was mild, and neither of us felt any cold; but it is possible that a chill on the water brought about a renewal of my old fever, or the attack may have been some first symptom of the more serious illness which came later. I woke the next morning--the morning we had arranged to leave--with

aching limbs and throbbing pulse, and a pain in my head which made vision dazzled and difficult.  A cold sponge-bath and hot tea gave me temporary relief, and I would not acknowledge to such illness as would prevent our moving forward--the movement by which alone we seemed able to baffle the enemy.Our journey on that day was neither long nor difficult--we posted to Taynuilt as a stage for Oban; but long before we reached our destination my malady had increased beyond concealment--at least from such quick eyes as my wife's, as her anxiety for me was easily aroused.  She arranged our wraps in the waggonette which took us on from Dalmally so that I could recline in the carriage; and I told her the probable course of the attack, and of the quinine treatment I had before found efficacious--directing her how to measure the powder I carried with me for these emergencies. At Taynuilt she must have given the necessary orders to the people at the inn--though I am told they do not remember her--for our arrival is a

blank to me.   I was carried to the bed on which I lay for more than a week utterly prostrate--often, I am afraid, delirious, but most tenderly cared for through all those days of illness by my wife. She seemed never weary, never impatient; and her cool hand on my head would call me back over and over again when I was wandering away into mists of delusion.  Delusion did beset me; but her presence at my side was a blessed reality, in the after-time most sorely missed and longed for.I must not dwell on that now--what she was to me, and how I have lost her--or my brain will go wild again, and writing become impossible.I spoke of the delusions of that illness. I will write of one which partook somewhat of the character of a dream that found fulfilment; or was it a dim perception, exaggerated into grotesque form, of something that actually took place? The bed on which I lay was close to the window, and from my pillow I could look up the corrie seamed in the side

of the great mountain, to the shoulder of Ben Cruachan white with snow against the sky. I used to lie there too weak and weary for speech--my wife's hand clasped in mine--and watch the white summit and the cloud-changes about it; but my sick fancy was annoyed and baffled by the crossbars of the window between me and it--especially at one point where the transverse woodwork cut across the snow.  That black network seemed to press upon and hurt my vision; and when I wandered it was to beg impatiently that it should be taken away, and the white remoteness left clear before me.One night, when I was at the worst, it seemed to me that I awoke and lay looking at the white mountain with some soft light about it such as stars or moon, when between me and it, uplifted into space, I saw a cross. Not the window-bars, for they were gone, but such a form of wood as that with which painters have made us familiar in ghastly representations of the Crucifixion. To this instrument of torture my wife was bound, in

the white dress she wore in the coffin--her arms and neck uncovered, and the green gleam of the necklace about her throat; while I saw plainly the four remaining lotus-buds where they hung below. As she floated between me and the snow her eyes did not meet mine, but looked away into space with an awful expectation in them--a dumb dread and endurance which it turns me cold to think of even now. The light brightened as I looked, but only on the figure and on the beloved face; the depths of air, and the mountain shape behind, remained dim as at first.It seems to my remembrance that hours went by, during which I gazed on the cross with anguish unutterable, nailed to the bed on which I lay--dumb with the oppression of nightmare, powerless to succour. A mysterious attraction drew my eyes to the necklace, and, as I watched, a single lotus blazed out into a star of flame, burned hotly for a few moments, and then died into a lingering spark; and there on the white neck

a blackened and blistered spot showed the space where it had hung.  Then came an interval which I cannot measure, and another pendant bud broke into flame, blazed and vanished, leaving a second burnt spot; and two only hung upon the chain.  The face on the cross moved for the first time, turned, and looked at me; and as if those eyes broke the spell, the cry I had been powerless to utter broke from my lips and I awoke.With that night the crisis of the fever passed; the next day found me better, clear-headed, nothing ailing me but weakness. Iras played the tyrant, and forbade me to speak or excite myself,--I must lie still and obey orders, and take what she held to my lips. I was, I think, tolerably quiescent, but after another night anxiety began to stir. I had lost count of our sojourn, but we had been fully a week at the inn--surely it was time and more that we were moving onwards; the enemy must be already on our track. I insisted on a carriage being ordered for the next morning to take us on another stage

towards Oban, and Iras did not oppose, though she fenced and put aside my questions. On this our last evening at Taynuilt I was sitting up in a chair with pillows, watching my wife as she moved softly about, when something in her face and air--I know not what--struck me with a recollected fear. "Iras," I said, and she came instantly beside me. "Undo the collar of your dress, my darling; I want to see the necklace."She tried to put me by on some soft pretext, but I would not take denial. Kneeling beside me, she unfastened the hooks which held her dress together and turned it back--dumbly, without a word, but with a mist of unshed tears in the dark eyes, and a quiver of sorrow on her lip. It was as I dreaded--two only of the lotus pendants remained, and under two of the spaces left vacant there were slight bruise-marks on her neck like the print of a finger--the very spots which I had seen burnt and blackened in my dream.I would have set out from Taynuilt that hour had it been possible;
but as it was, the night

passed without disturbance, and we left early on the morrow. I have no clear recollection of the stages to Oban: it mattered little now where we went, so long as continued movement was possible. I no longer thought of any return to London or to work--nothing signified to me any more save the desperate effort to keep Iras mine, and to prolong to the uttermost the time we could spend together.I was better by the time we reached Oban, but the mantle of my weakness seemed to be falling upon Iras. I noticed henceforward that she did not care to walk any distance, and when we were not travelling, she would lie on a couch drawn to the window of our room, looking out on the hills or the sea. But in ministering to my comfort she knew no fatigue, and her care for me never faltered till the end came--any more than her love.To my eyes her beauty was greater than ever, though a change was passing upon it: it was growing more ethereal under the advancing Shadow, though so gradually that it was only by comparison with that first revelation

of her in the glow of renewed life that I fully realised how she was altering. She had something the air of a woman in a decline, and yet it was hardly ill-health but increased spirituality which was suggested by the change.I mark our brief sojourn at Oban by the discovery, little as it impressed me at the time, that my wife was not perceptible to all vision as to my own. I believe it was not so at the first, and I note it now doubtfully and with a query in the light of what came after--asking myself if the gradual abstraction of the pendants took from her the power of impressing others with her living semblance as in the beginning?When we entered the hotel where I had elected to stay--together from the chaise which had brought us--a smart manageress in silk gown and a display of gold ornaments came forward to answer my inquiry for rooms. Yes, she said, I could have what I asked for; they were not full now, as it was after the season; and would I put my name where she pointed. I wrote, as I always did, Mr and

Mrs Lavenham; and she glanced inquiringly at the pile of luggage over which the hall-porter was hovering, and again at the names in the book. "You expect Mrs Lavenham to join you here?" she said. "Mrs Lavenham is here with me," I replied; and indeed Iras was standing at my elbow all the time. The woman looked puzzled, but said no more; and I drew my wife's arm in mine to lead her upstairs, following a chamber-maid armed with the keys. I made a joke of it to her at the time, and indeed it struck me in no other light. "It all comes of my grey hairs," I said. "You see they cannot believe you are anything but my daughter;" and all import of the blunder passed away in the sweetness of the eyes and the smile she lifted to meet mine.I will finish the hotel incident while I am about it, though I have
another instance to record during our stay. When we were departing and
the bill was presented for payment, I was about to settle it with this
same manageress, when the total happened to strike me 

as unexpectedly small. I am somewhat careless about money matters, and seldom examine the items of such an account; but this time I did glance over it, and saw that dinner, breakfast, attendance, and so forth, were charged throughout for one, as if I had been alone. I pointed this out, and requested correction; and again came the same puzzled hesitation-- almost an unwillingness to make any change. "You have not charged for Mrs Lavenham," I said. " Please make the alteration at once, for time presses;" and thus urged, it was done, though the woman muttered "she had made out the bill as instructed," and accepted the additional sovereign with a bad grace.The other incident occurred that same morning.  Iras and I walked
round by the harbour to look beyond the point at the unquiet
sea--still roughened, even within the natural breakwater of Kerrera,
after the heavy storm which had raged round the coast two days before.
I got into conversation with an elderly Highlander who was
superintending the lading of a smack, and heard from him 

some further details of an accident which had been the leading topic at the hotel on our arrival. A fishing-boat, driven on the rocks in the outer channel, had gone down with all hands--a man and boy--and the bodies were being watched for with every tide. The boy seemed to have been of small account--an orphan lad, no stay to any one as yet; but the fisherman had left a house full of little children, and since that night of disaster one more had come to the widow in her agony. Iras stood by while the old man was giving me these details, and I could see she understood them enough to be moved to pity. I was not surprised that her hand came creeping under my arm when we had turned away."O Ralph, that poor mother! Could we not send her something--for the little baby ?"The old Highlander had looked honest, and had, moreover, told his story with no hint of expected charity. I offered her the loose coins in my pocket, and she chose out of them a 
little gold piece. "Will you go back and take it to him?" she said."Come yourself, my darling. He will like it better from you.""No--no." She shook her head emphatically.  "I could not make him understand. Please go without me, Ralph, and I will wait here."I went back as she wished, and explained to the man the destination of the bit of gold. "The lady had sent it," I said.This assertion seemed to perplex him, and he eyed the coin
doubtfully. "Mrs Macdonald would be ferry much obliged," he said; "but there would be friends raised up, and he had not meant to ask from strangers. And who might be the leddy? ""The lady who was with me," I said in explanation--"who stood by when he was telling me about the wreck."The man looked completely mystified, and stared as though he thought either he or I had taken leave of our senses. "I never saw no

leddy," he broke out at last; and then--perhaps fearing some lapse of manners-went on to repeat in conclusion that he was "ferry much obliged all the same, and Mrs Macdonald she would be ferry much obliged as well."CHAPTER IX.The two last pendants were safe when we left Oban,--that I remember; but I cannot say certainly in what direction we journeyed beyond. That treacherous cloud of memory has blotted out a portion of our wanderings, and the dates which intervened between the 25th and 29th of November. I can only now tell that in some out-of-the-way place, name forgotten, we were detained a day beyond our reckoning by the accidental failure of the conveyance which was to take us on. The afternoon of my remembrance was stormy and cold, and Iras had seemed so much tired by her last journey that I was not sorry for the rest for her, nor greatly concerned over the detention, as she had expressed no un-

easiness. The inn was a small one, and had no private sitting-room to place at our disposal, so we were forced to content ourselves with the common-room at the service of all comers; but, as it happened, at this lonely season we had it to ourselves.The name of the place is gone irrecoverably, but I remember the room--the peat-fire burning in the grate, the glass cases against the walls, with their contents of phenomenal fish and one royal eagle; the slippery horse-hair sofa on which Iras lay. I had been running over the week-old newspaper at the window, and when that exciting occupation failed me, I stepped softly across to the chair by the fireside, from which I could watch her as she slept. She looked very frail and delicate as she lay there, and the soft oval of her cheek was growing wasted. I realised this with a pang of fear--not of the supernatural this time, but of failing nature. I had been wrong, I thought, to keep her in the north, much as she loved it, and mild as had been the season hitherto. We were now on the

edge of winter; henceforward our enforced travels should be in search of a warmer climate. We would push on by the cross-country route on which we were embarked till we reached again the great centres of rail, and from thence our advance could be by easy strides to the south.The afternoon was growing early dusk, and the fire, all in a cave of red heat, threw scant illumination into the room. It may be objected in this case also that I dozed in my chair, and what I have to tell was only dream. All I can say is that it came to me with the semblance of reality, and was followed by the same effect of loss.Those who know what it is to be on the edge of parting--be it the severance of distance or the severance of death--will understand how I studied my wife's face, and with what contraction of heart,--striving to print indelibly on remembrance every beloved trait, every fleeting expression, as a possession for the blank which would come after. I surely foreknew that it must come, strenuously as

I strove to deny it both to myself and her. It is a possession, for through all the failure of memory which besets me, I can recall her face perfectly in every change from grave to gay; can recall it as she lay lost in dreams on that hard pillow in the winter dusk--the dark sweep of eyelash on her pale cheek, the fine pencilling of the straight brows, the lips with their sorrowful curve, as if her foreknowledge were a shadow upon her even in her sleep. Her right hand was under her cheek as she lay--her left with the wedding-ring on it hung down in the glow of the fire. I saw both hands plainly, but what was this other!A third hand came into sight over her shoulder--a slender hand, longer and larger than her own and darker in tint, the lean fingers moving round the collar of her dress as if to pluck it undone. A hand only in view, but with no appearance of detachment, it seemed to reach over from behind her as if the figure to which it belonged were concealed by the back of the sofa, and the arm

passed through it.   There was something hideous in the contrast between those stealthy fingers and her placid sleep--something devilish, horrible, murderous; and for the first aghast moment I could only look in paralysed astonishment.The hand was quick in movement, and as I started to my feet it had already dived  within the collar. I flung forward upon it,  but was too late; the eel-like thing eluded my grasp-withdrew and vanished. Indeed that I ever touched it I cannot be sure; and there was Iras awake and looking at me in surprise.Nothing earthly was lurking in the shadow; we were alone in the room. I drew her head on to my shoulder, and clasped her to me in an agony of dread under the semblance of a caress. I did not dare ask for the emerald chain to be uncovered as I had done before; I knew too well how it would be. The discovery came at night that the last pendant hung alone. Iras took it very quietly; the terror and distress she had shown in the

beginning were all gone. I could divine she was trying to be resigned, and would not mar the time that remained to us by any open demonstration of grief. She said little, but the clasp of her arms about my neck was silently eloquent, and we kissed as we might have done if the parting hour had already come.I knew what she expected--that the severance of the last pendant would bring about her death; and witnessing the advance of the change in her as one after the other fell away, I feared it might be only too true a forecast. The resolve I renewed in the watches of that night was to keep moving onward, and to sojourn nowhere for a longer period than twenty-four hours: during that time, so far as experience had borne out, we might consider ourselves secure. It would be a weary life of perpetual journeying, and might tax her diminished strength: still, if it lengthened the span of her continuance with me, that was motive for all.It was a piece of singular unwisdom,. I re-

flected after, which had prompted me to embark on that cross-country
journey, where the means of conveyance forward might often become
difficult; but we were now so far advanced that to go on was
preferable to retracing our steps. I calculated we could reach
Inverardoch possibly in another day, and Callander by the following
evening; and from there the railway would be available for Edinburgh
and the south.Was it only one day's journey from that nameless inn to Inverardoch? Here again I am obliged to confess a doubt. I remember our departure, and how, standing at the door, I had occasion sharply to rebuke the man-of- all-work who brought out my portmanteau, and brushed roughly against Iras with it, pushing her aside. I called to him to stand out of the way of the lady; and his face is plain before me with its gape of wonder, as I helped her into the vehicle and arranged our plaid over her knees.I have no positive remembrance whether it was the evening of that day or the day follow- 
ing which found us slowly crawling along the hilly road that wound up through one of the less frequented passes towards the head of the great lake.  If the same, we had somewhere changed vehicles en route, and were in an open waggonette-machine, as they call it in the north-and not a covered chaise. Anything wilder or more grand in its desolation it would be difficult to picture: I, with my travelled experience of other lands and heights of greater altitude, had been impressed equally with Iras.  We seemed to have penetrated into the very heart of the mountains, and the effect was enhanced by the covering of snow which rested on all the higher summits. That phenomenon of the snow was of unfailing interest to my wife--the wonder and mystery of its white purity, its soft descent, delighted her ever anew. The rain had charmed her when first it fell, and the clouds and mists about the mountains, with their soft veilings of distance and their sudden changes and revelations, and especially the pageant of the rainbow; but her

delight in the snow was greater than all. If I live into the snow-time of another year, I shall never see it fall without the thought of her pleasure in it; but indeed the thought of her is with me in all surroundings, and in every act of life.We had that day what is rare in the Highlands--a communicative driver, who took upon himself something of the office of cicerone: probably the man had a strain of Irish blood in his veins later than the Scots extraction. It was he who pointed out the different heights by name, and drew our attention-my attention, for I do not remember that he ever addressed Iras--to the first opening in the landscape below us of the loch to which we were bound. It must be lovely indeed under the sun of summer; it was grand as we saw it, but lonely and awesome--black in the shadow of those girdling hills and under the growing darkness of a sky pierced here and there already by the firepoint of a star. Iras stood up in the carriage to look, with my hand to support her, gazing

silently and intently over the wide prospect. "It is beautiful," she
said--"yes, it is beautiful; but oh, how dark! It is like going down
into the night."The driver was busy under the carriage scotching his wheel for the long descent which now began into the valley. About half-way down he pulled up his horses at a turn of the winding road--something had gone wrong with a strap, and the putting of it right paved the way for more conversation. "Ye see that hill on the left, sir, right below us. That's the Cruach-fruin; and some say it's rightly named because of the burying-ground there is there, right up against the kirk, for all this district round about. Ye'll be bound to see the roofs on the south side in the shelter--that's Cruach-fruin kirk and Cruach-fruin manse, and this is the Allt-fruin burn which runs down from it, that the road crosses at the bridge below."I looked where I was bidden, and saw the humble slated roofs against the hillside, with a glimmer of white gravestones about the

farther one, but did not feel an interest keen enough to prompt me to ask for an explanation of the name. It was, however, supplied to us."It just means the Hill of Sorrow--Cruach-fruin does; the name has been that from all time: but it's a hill of sorrow it has proved to many a one going up there with their dead. No, sir, there's no village hereabout. The people come to the kirk from far and wide over the hills, and the only near house is Inverardoch, where ye are bound."He climbed back to his perch and set the machine in motion. I looked at the lonely manse on the Hill of Sorrow, and wondered what manner of people spent their lives there in these solitudes. With books and a congenial companion it would be possible, I thought, to be happy, even in a place which called itself Cruach-fruin; nay, would I not be more than willing to change lots with that Free Kirk minister, if only I could find there a safe shelter for Iras, a refuge from persecution which she could share with me!

She had glanced at the place and away again without remark; and then, drawing off her glove, held out her bare hand to be touched by the snowflakes which now began to wander down one by one--flakes which proved to be the vanguard of a host. As she lifted her face to the darkening sky, I saw she was very pale. Yes, she was tired, she said in answer to my question, and she felt stiff from the long sitting in the carriage; but the cold was nothing--she would be well when we got in and could have tea.As I have said, the stars were brightening on the eastern horizon, which was still clear from the snow-cloud that gathered behind us in the north-west. I looked up as she did, and there, right opposite across the lake, was the great sign of the hunter--the stars of Orion's belt above the shoulder of the hill. It was long since I had given Madame St Heliers a thought, but the words of her warning came back upon me as if freshly spoken--"Beware of the snows of winter, and Orion low in the east." There was the

sign of Orion fronting me with ominous clearness--the sign of the hunter, when we indeed were fugitives; and as I saw it the snows of winter were falling already around me.The hotel of Inverardoch was a big rambling place--full to overflowing, doubtless, in the early autumn, but at this season shuttered up and dismal. Our arrival seemed to be a surprise here as at other inns along our route; I suppose a November tourist was something phenomenal. There was of course ample accommodation at our service, but, it would be some little time in preparation. Meanwhile there was a fire in the bar-parlour, where tea could be served to us.I went back to the carriage, but when I offered Iras my hand to alight she said in a whisper, "I am afraid you must lift me, Ralph, I feel so weak and stiff." I took her up like a child, and light indeed she seemed in my arms, carrying her in to the warmth and glow of the fire. I write of this, because it was mentioned afterwards to Knollys. The rooms were made ready

for us in about an hour; and at supper the waiting-maid announced with
much unction that it was snowing-heavily, as if the contrast of wild
weather outside might be an enhancement of comfort within. When I
crossed the hall later in the evening, the host and proprietor was
standing before the barometer. "Lucky the storm did not come on till
you got in, sir," he said to me. "Your man was bound for Innisfail,
and has had a tough job to get there, I reckon, though it is but a
matter of four miles. All the signs point to prolonged
disturbance. Listen to the wind."We had driven through still air, but now the wind had indeed risen, and was shrieking round the house with a note of true wintry tempest. An outer door opened, and through it a gust of snow whirled into the light: a man entered, white over the head and shoulders, and stamping his feet to clear them. "A rough night, Mr Fergus," he said to my companion. "The drifts are blowing up already, and will be deep and to spare before the morn."Whenever I woke in the night it was to hear the same hurtle of tempest, and when the late grey light struggled into the room--the light of that last day--the gale had hardly abated. I called Iras to the window to look at the universal whiteness, which found contrast alone in the black waters of the loch and the murky sky above. No sharp outlines remained lower than the mountain summits; everything seemed rounded into billowy curves, and it needed only a gleam of sunshine to make the prospect dazzling."A white world for you, my darling," I said, as she gazed in
silence and with caught breath. "You wanted to see a deep snow! Does
it look as lovely as you fancied?""It is wonderful," she said presently. "There is something about it beyond beauty. A world with no sin in it nor wrong thoughts--might look like that! Do you think the heavenly country you believe in will be built of snow ?"At first sight I had felt nothing but pleasure she should be pleased; soon, however, there 
awoke a new and keen anxiety. How would the roads be found for the journey of that day ?--the enforced journey which we must not omit. I took an early opportunity of consulting the innkeeper, and he pronounced at once and unhesitatingly on the impossibility of getting forward. There had not been such a snow in the district for twenty years or more, and, as I could see, it was deepening every hour; and indeed another squall tore down from the hills as we were speaking, driving before it a cloud of whirling white. The drifts would be shoulder-deep, ay, and more than that in places; there was a drift pretty nigh to a man's waist between the hotel and Cruach-fruin two hours back, for all it was to the lee of the hill.  A messenger had waded through from the manse, as they feared being short of supplies. I must make up my mind to stay where I was, for a day or two at any rate, till communication could be opened up.I believe the man thought I was mad in my insistence, as again and again I returned to the charge. No bribe, and I offered a heavy

one, would induce him to send out a carriage or launch a boat on the loch; the latter would, he said, be certain death in the teeth of such a storm. It might be possible next day, if the wind abated, but not now. He did not put the direct question what ailed me with Inverardoch that I could not remain where I was; but it was plainly in his eye, if not translated into speech, when I urged that the effort might be made at least to get us to the manse at Cruach-fruin. He was master of the situation and paramount, and my open purse did not tempt him. He became at length both short and surly in denial: doubtless he thought who was I, a stranger, that life and limb should be risked in my service, even granted I had money for payment! Iras saw in my face when I returned to her that some disaster had arisen, but when I endeavoured to explain, it was she who was the comforter,--it was she who was brave to face the threatened danger, and not I.Shall I ever forget the passage of that long day? She asked me to
wheel her couch to

the window, and there lay looking out at the white landscape, the falling snow which had built round us so complete a prison. She had taken up the book from which I was teaching her--the study begun with eagerness on her side and pride on mine, both of us looking forward to a long life spent together in which such knowledge would be of service. To-day we had little heart for the task, either I to teach or she to learn; and presently it was laid aside, and her head drawn to a resting-place on my shoulder. I strove to be dumb in my anguish, but I could have groaned aloud in this impotence to avert the fate which was stealing upon her with the passing hours. She put up her hand now and then to stroke my face--such a thin hand it was now, and the wedding-ring-so loose upon it. "Ralph," she said, "you must not be troubled. I have had the feeling there could be no long postponement--I think it will not have made much difference after all. And to be with you to the last, for you to love me to the last, even had the time granted us been years instead of

days, what more could I have asked than this? Since I have grown weaker, it is as if something had widened in my mind--as if a power were given me to look forward, and to see dimly that what seems the end may be only a stage of our beginning--not for me alone in the great change, but for me and you together. When this little space of life drops away and my body goes back to the dust it should have been by now, this Iras, as you call her, who loves you and feels and knows, will be close to your heart as the pulse of it; will be alive in your life, a double soul in one frame, till the time comes, the blessed time, when we can begin together. O my love! I am glad you are grey-haired--I am glad you are not a young man--so that the time may not be long."I remember the utterance as if it had been prophecy--I have graven it, as it were, on the palms of my hands; and I think, my heart's dearest, you will prove right in this--the time will not be long.The inn service went forward, meals were

brought to us, and we made some pretence to eat them; noon passed over, and the day declined. There was no evidence of a spiritual presence in the quiet room, or of the stealing upon us of the enemy; but every nerve of me knew he was at hand. In the deepening twilight Iras fell asleep, pillowed as she was against me--peacefully at first as a child might, but presently a wave of trouble seemed to pass over her dream. She struggled faintly though without waking. "O Ralph," I heard her murmur--"O Ralph, my husband, save me!" The appeal was unconscious, but it thrilled through me like fire. I could endure inaction no longer. The one scheme I had revolved again and again, and given up as impracticable, became suddenly transfigured into the possible. I would wade through the snow as the man had waded in the morning, and carry Iras to the manse. What matter if it had deepened; he had dared the passage, a hireling sent on an errand, and could not I dare it when the stake was life and love? I was strong enough to carry her,

light as she was, in my arms; and at the manse they could not refuse us shelter--the church would afford that for the night, even if the house were full. We would not delay another moment here in peril."Wake up, my darling.   I have thought of a way. We are going to the manse. You will not be afraid to trust yourself with me? Stay here a moment, and I will fetch your things."I brought her fur coat from the bedroom and her hat and veil, and put it upon her as I did that first day of all our days, the morning at G---- Street. She looked at me bewildered, hardly awake, but passively obedient; and I carried her down the staircase and through the entrance, and out into the wintry twilight.The air was growing keen with frost, and the snow proved deep to plunge into, even on the level. A line of loose-built wall helped me to keep the road, which here and there had been swept bare by the fierce gusts whirling drifted heaps against every obstacle in

their track. This gave me an opportunity to set Iras on her feet for a brief rest before we went on. At the moment it was fine overhead and not yet dark, though there was no light of stars or moon. The depth of snow lay in the hollow and under the hill, but it was still soft; and I could just distinguish the outline, far above us, of the buildings at Cruach-fruin. It was something to have our goal in view, and by it I thought I could sufficiently steer our direction to keep the track. I bade my wife hold firmly to my shoulder, and carrying her as high as I could, I plunged into the drift.It was hardly so deep as I expected, but to battle through it taxed all my powers,--fortunately the great exertion of that first effort warmed my blood, and warded off for a time the paralysing chill which overcame me later.  How long the struggle lasted I cannot say; but we won our way through at last, and I set my precious burden on the parapet of the bridge and leaned there to recover myself, breathless and suddenly weak.

She made some protest that I should carry her no farther--she would walk as I did; but I would not hear. I took her in my arms again and began the ascent of the hill. The snow here was not so deep, except where I missed the track and stumbled into hollows, but in another way conditions became less favourable. Another whirling storm of snow swept down upon us, confusing vision and making breath difficult to draw; and there was the increasing labour of the rising ground. But to turn back was not to be thought of--death lay behind us and hope before; and if desperate resolve were ever sufficient in itself to keep life whole in a man and brain steady, that hope should be ours.I cannot measure the time, nor say how long it was that I toiled upwards with heart throbbing as if it would break the prison of my chest, and pulses beating like hammers in ears and brain. The white storm smote me in the face, but I began to see dimly through it a faint light like the light of a candle set in a window. Sometimes I lost

it stumbling into a hollow, and then emerging, saw again the feeble glimmer which told of a possible haven. But a horror of darkness was coming upon me, a confusion of strange shapes, a voice within which spoke taunting words, reminding me that this was the Hill of Sorrow, and I too was climbing it with my dead. The ache of all my limbs passed into an icy numbness; I could no longer feel where I set my foot. Iras lay very still, and the clasp of her arms failed from my neck. I feared she had fainted--nay, my fear was deeper rooted. I tried to see her face, but as I bent over her something seemed to snap within my brain, the blackness of utter extinction rose up and engulfed me like a wave, and I remember no more.CHAPTER X.THAT wave of blackness engulfed brain and being, and sucked me out into the ebb and flow of an unquiet sea, wherein I was overwhelmed for many days and nights. Sometimes I would seem to rise to the surface for a few conscious struggles, and then be again drawn under to the depths. I had no knowledge of my surroundings beyond a dim occasional perception of faces which would bend over me and vanish--away into the blackness, or else I myself was withdrawn into it. So much for the outward; but with all I had the haunting consciousness of a purpose unfulfilled, a train of idea broken which I could not connect, a spur of necessity to arise and be doing, but I knew not the deed. The knowledge of

Iras and her danger seemed to be blotted out; and this country in which I was toiling up precipices, and through sandy wastes, and between the pylons of ruined temples, and into the chambers of the dead, was a country that knew no snow nor winter, a country of torrid heats and burning sands, of sudden darkness at sundown and the shining of strange stars. Such bewilderment and lapse of memory confused the inner citadel of the mind; and yet this outer husk of me remembered her, for I have been told that all the cry of my delirium was on the one beloved name.There came a day when on the edge of twilight the divided consciousness was made whole, the two halves of my brain reunited, and I opened seeing eyes once again upon this weary and desolate world.  An unfamiliar world which did not connect itself with any former experience. A narrow strip of a room with two lattice-paned dormer windows and a sloping roof, a small iron bedstead on which I lay--or rather to which I seemed nailed in the prostration of utter weakness.

I saw the flicker of firelight, the outline of a chintz-covered chair by the hearth, but I appeared to be alone. I suppose I made some noise in trying to move, for a large, collie gathered itself up from the floor, approached the bed, surveyed me with intelligent scrutiny  and a snuff or two from the long fine muzzle,
waved its bush of a tail, and disappeared through the half-open door. A muffled bark outside seemed to be translated into a summons, for it was quickly followed by the entrance of an elderly woman wearing a muslin cap tied under her chin. The collie accompanied her, and had doubtless acted on previous instructions. "Good dog, Nell," she was saying, "to call me when he began to stir." She glanced at the fire and then at me, but not as if expecting any coherent address. "Where am I?" I asked."Why, Lord save us! he's come to himself," was her first ejaculation. "You are at the manse, sir, and have been this long while-- ever since Nell here found you, out in the snow."In the snow! These words pieced together the broken chain of memory; it seemed but the hour before that I was struggling towards this very goal with Iras in my arms. I wrenched myself round in the bed in an agony of anxiety. "My wife?" I said. "Where is my wife ?""Dear, dear! he's off again for sure! Now you must just keep yourself quiet, and take your medicine as the doctor said."I put out a weak hand to grasp her dress, and I suppose something in my face convinced her I was a sane man expecting an answer, and not repeating the cry of my delirium. "Indeed, sir, I can't tell you," she said. "We know nought about you but that you were found as I say, and only your name off a letter--if it happens to be Lavenham ?""But I was not alone when I was found? My wife was with me. Are you concealing from me that she is dead?""No, sir; I am concealing nothing, for it's heaven's truth I don't know. You were 
brought in here alone, and for aught else ye'll have to ask the minister. And now lie still, for I must change the cloths on your head.""Can I see the minister-now?" I persisted.She shook her head. "He's out on his round, and will be this hour yet. And the mistress is lying down, for she's bad again with her lameness since the cold came; so ye'll have to be content with me for the present--I'm just Hannah, if you want to cry on me--and Nell here, who has taken an interest in you like a Christian all the time you've been ill. She thinks ye are her property I take it, seeing how she found you; and it's been right down impossible to keep her from the room."All this time Hannah was steeping the bandages in fresh water and laying them back with dexterous fingers, and I felt the relief of the welcome coolness about my aching dizzy head. I put up my hand and discovered I was close cropped indeed under that wet turban. "Ay," she said, "we cut your hair

as close as we could lay the scissors. The doctor said it was best so; but it will grow again, never fear, and you'll be even with the best of them."She administered this piece of consolation so quaintly it was impossible to help smiling; but my powers of conversation were giving out, and, after swallowing the restorative she presently held to my lips, I was fain to lie still in the twilight--pressing no more useless questions, but consuming anxiety and impatience as best I might in face of the inevitable suspense.  What had become of Iras? That my darling was lost to me--that the last pendant was gone, and the separation we feared had come about--I never doubted; but she was in my arms when I swooned, and must have been found with me, dead or alive,--unless, indeed, the Power which attacked her life could remove her body also. The woman who called herself Hannah had mended the fire, and the glancing flames threw upward strange flickers of brightness and shadow on the bare walls of the chamber. The light

within, though only of the uncertain blaze, was growing stronger than the light without, when an outer door opened abruptly, admitting footsteps and voices, and closed again as if the in-comers were glad to shut out night and cold behind them. The voices passed into the room below.Not for long, however; for presently there was a noise of chairs pushed back, and the footsteps, two pairs of them, came treading up the staircase. A short man, moustached and bearded, was the first to enter. "There can be no objection to you coming up," he was saying. "There has been no sign of consciousness hitherto, and I shall be glad to know that you recognise him. Hannah, a candle."The woman came forward with some whispered communication, and meanwhile the second taller figure approached the bed and bent over me. There was no mistaking that kind ugly face, and at the moment only one other could have been more welcome. I gave a choked cry at the sight of it, and my hands

went out wavering to grasp his. If I could find no voice to speak with in that first moment, my weakness must be remembered as a plea of excuse."Knollys, old man, are you here still?"
This some time later, when the room had been for a long time very silent."Close here, my dear fellow. I am sitting up with you to-night. But you must remember injunctions and keep quiet.""Tell me this. How did you know where I was, and how did you manage to get away? I am afraid it will be a loss to you--in time and money both.""As for the first, it came about very simply. They didn't know who you were or where your friends lived, so Mr Colquhoun here examined your pockets for papers. And it seems you were carrying about with you the letter I wrote to Edinburgh; so he dropped me a line to say you were ill and all that, and asked me to come to you.""And you came like the good fellow you

are, and gave up your work and your prospects--for me!""Well--I had run down rather and wanted a change, and thought I would like to see the winter aspect of things up north. It will give me some hints for black-and-white effects, don't you know.  And I have not left my work, I have brought it with me. Luckily I am just now about a job that was movable.""I shall be able to talk--better to you to-morrow. I have so much to say.""No doubt you will. And all the more chance of it if you lie still now and try to sleep.""Knollys, you will promise me this. My wife--Iras!--I am in trouble. I have lost her. Help me to make them speak--to get to the bottom of the mystery--to find her if she is above ground----""I'll help you in anything and everything if you will be quiet now and get to sleep. And I'll hear all about it from beginning to end to-morrow, or as soon as ever you have

strength to tell me. But I can't let you talk now, or I shall have that severe-looking female to reckon with, and be deposed for ever from my post of nurse. I am going to wet these rags, and then you must lie still."It was neither the next day nor the next after that I was able to tell my story in its entirety. A few words now and again were all I had strength for, and these I am sure Knollys took at first for delirium, confused as they were by my very eagerness. It became familiar and usual to see him bending over his blocks at a table set in the small window; though at first such an astonishing and unreal importation of a bit of my London life into this new and strange existence--full of weariness and pain and loss. Hannah came to and fro on ministering errands; and I made the acquaintance both of my host and hostess, and of the small ferret-faced doctor whose skill had, I suppose, dragged me back out of the jaws of imminent death. A  consultation with

Knollys used to follow his visits; and I felt my friend came back from these less disposed to give credit to the story I was striving to tell, thought there was no outspoken incredulity.Mr and Mrs Colquhoun were kindly people; and to me they had indeed acted the part of the good Samaritan, taking in and tending the helpless stranger stricken down at their gates. They were neither of them young; and the children who had grown up under the shelter of the manse were men and women out in the world, leaving the father and mother solitary to go down the hill of life together hand in hand. Mr Colquhoun had travelled in his youth, and was an exceptionally good talker, with plenty of racy humour despite the narrowing influence of his cloth: the northern burr which characterised his speech is alway pleasant to my ear. We got on well enough, and I liked him; but anything that touched on what he considered my delusion would always send him to the right about. The wife was a

small bright-eyed woman, a sufferer from sciatica, and frequently obliged to keep to her room or the sofa during the colder part of the year.  She would come limping in to ask after me, and had a kind motherly way with her, putting her soft hand to my forehead and on my pulse as if I had been a son of her own. But here too was another sceptic, incredulous of my story.  It was not to them that I could turn for help, though I might have looked for sympathy from a woman; it was in Knollys that my hope lay."You believe, do you not, that what I am telling you is the truth?"We were alone together on the fourth morning, and Knollys had brought the despatch--box from  Inverardoch at my urgent entreaty. He was to make out a cheque for such shaky signature as I could contrive; and I had another and further object in sending for my papers."My dear Lavenham, I feel sure of this--that you entirely believe what you have  told me. But the view the doctor takes seems to be that your illness has been a long time threatening--possibly ever since the sunstroke in Egypt; and when this is so, it is not at all unusual to find the patient subject to what he calls persistent hallucination. He knows your story only in outline--do not imagine I have betrayed your closer confidence; but under his theory you were hallucinated when you left London believing you had a travelling companion, and the same impression has continued since in your wanderings, till the attack culminated and spent its force in brain fever. You must have patience with me, old fellow, but I want you to see the other side, and what will occur to people as the natural explanation of all this."I put out my hand, the left hand. "Am I hallucinated when I think there is a ring on that finger? How does it appear to you--as a ring or a shadow?""A ring certainly, and a curious one. But what has that to do with it?""It was my wife's gift to me on our wedding-day. It has never left my finger since she placed it there. And I maintain the giver is as real as the gift.""I can see it is an antique, such as might be taken from a tomb. Lavenham, I may be unwise in speaking out to you so soon, but I think it is better you should know what it was which was found with you in the snow.  It will be a shock, I doubt not, but I believe it will set your anxiety at rest."I looked at him, and my heart began to throb in its weakness as it had throbbed under the oppression of that deadly chill. The suspense was too great for speech."It was a mummy--the mummy of a woman; a thing swathed and bandaged in cerements and dry as a stick, which had been dead for hundreds--nay, thousands--of years. The mummy, doubtless, that Skipton sent you to G---- Street, and that you took from there under--the impression you told me of."I had no words in that first moment. Not that my belief was shaken, but the wonder and horror of the revelation struck me dumb. So this was how we had been parted, and the doom had come!"The mummy had been wrapped from head to foot in a fur coat, and had a modern gauze veil tied over its own bands of long hair. And--Lavenham, I asked the Inverardoch people about your stay there, and whether you had a lady with you, and they say expressly no. You arrived alone, but you carried a bundle wrapped in fur, of which you were very careful; and when you left the hotel to go out into the snow--some of the people about saw you leave--you had the same bundle in your arms."I dragged myself up higher on the pillows, and signed imperatively to him to give me the despatch-box, and the keys from where they lay beside my watch. I could hardly see key or lock, but I got the lid open and put my hand on what I sought.  It was the blue folded paper which had been given me in the

registrar's office-the certificate of marriage in due form. "Show that to the doctor," I said. "Ask the witnesses and the officials in Edinburgh whether the wife I married was a living woman or no!"Knollys unfolded the paper and spread it out. The spaces left blank in the printing were filled up in clerkly handwriting with the particulars I had given, and the document attested my marriage by declaration and warrant of the sheriff-substitute, on the twenty-seventh of October in the current year, to Iras Charmian, formerly of Luxor. "This is very strange," he said. "There was certainly a marriage.""I will prove it if I live--both her existence and my sanity; for the two stand or fall together, I can see. The mummy you spoke of--where is it?"He hesitated. "It was not brought into the house. Mr Colquhoun had it put in a sort of loft or granary over the stables, and there I was taken to see it when first I came. I did not think the place a very secure one----"A granary over stables! A horrible vision of rats and their depredations rose into mental view, and I could not repress a shudder."----So I took it upon myself to order a coffin--the plainest possible--just to enclose and protect the body till we knew your wishes. There was some hesitation at first over supplying a Christian coffin for heathen service, but as the remains were once human, I brought Mr Colquhoun round to agree with me, and the scruples of the Presbyterian carpenter were overcome. The box is to be here to-day, and it will remain in the loft, covered over, till you give directions for disposal.""I must see it, Knollys. If it is all that is left of my darling, I must see it. Can it be brought to me here? ""I'm afraid not. In fact I know these good people would have a prejudice against bringing it into the house--some superstition, I suppose. I think they will be glad when it is removed even from the stables. Not Mr Colquhoun, perhaps, but the women. But it

shall remain where it is till you have seen it, and I will look to safe custody."I lay staring before me, striving to realise the awful ghastly change which had passed upon so much beauty. I was just in that mood of depression which can only see the earthly side of death, and I was yet but a stumbler at the alphabet of things spiritual. Could I bear to look upon it? and yet the dire necessity pressed me close that I must make myself certain the form was hers, and not a substitution. She spoke to me at the foot of the hill, her arms clung about me as we began the ascent; was the change in that remembered moment when they failed from my neck? or did she stiffen into this dread likeness after I was stricken and powerless to protect her?  Knollys was still regarding the certificate as if striving to fit it in with a preconceived idea; it was a bit of evidence neither he nor the doctor would easily get over, and that I knew when I produced it. I had struck that blow for the truth's sake; but just then the wound of my sorrow bled too newly and

ached too sharply for me to follow it up by volunteered discussion. He turned the paper over and examined it closely as if suspicious of fraud, but found nothing to cavil at. "There must certainly have been a marriage," he said again. "Can a real woman have taken advantage of your delusion and personated it for a time, afterwards leaving you with the body? Forgive the suggestion, Lavenham, but, as you said yourself, this is a thing which must be proved--one way or other. We must find out who it was you married, for your sake and the truth's."I shook my head at his question, but he went on, more to himself than to me, revolving the idea.  "It would have to be some one clever enough to act the part, and able to conceal the real mummy for the time being. There would be difficulties, I allow, and some strong motive must be conjectured. Was there no stage of the affair in which you noticed a change - that your companion seemed to alter ?""I can only tell you, Knollys, that the Iras

whom I found in the mummy-case was the Iras I married, and the Iras who was with me at Inverardoch.  There was no change from first to last, except the change which might be seen in the same person under the influence of a wasting decline. You have had evidence of her living presence in London. What did Mrs Mappinbeck tell you of the lady at my rooms? And I opened the case myself. I cut through the inner envelope of bitumen and resin, and the living woman was within.""There must have been imposition from the first. Could Skipton have been in the plot, I wonder--or more likely that horrible Arab? What I should like to find out is when she ceased to appear to those about you as a living person; that would be the point of discovery--the weak place in the conspiracy, granted there has been one. Dr Graham shall see the certificate, Lavenham, if you will trust me with it till he comes. It may stump him about his theory as much as it does me."We were interrupted by the collie Nell, who all this time was lying at my feet on the bed,

as she had taken to do latterly--proving very handy on occasions; for if Hannah was wanted--and the room possessed no bell--the dog would fetch her at a word and take no denial. Nell had been sleeping to all appearance, but now roused herself and looked eagerly at the door, as if at an entering figure--eagerly and in doubt, her silky ruff erecting and the hair on her back bristled up. She followed with her eyes invisible movement across the room, dropped from the bed and seemed to approach what excited her curiosity, and then, with a satisfied wave of her tail, leapt back again and curled herself once more beside me. That was the first time Knollys and I witnessed the little pantomime of what we called in jest Nell's ghost, but it was of frequent after-recurrence.The next real entrance following that fancied one was the minister
Mr Colquhoun. He drew a chair beside the bed, and noticing Nell upon
it in close attendance on me as usual, he said: "I think when ye are
well enough to leave, Mr Lavenham, ye will have to take the dog with
you.  She has fairly 

owned you, as the saying is; and she never has settled 'in thoroughly with us. She was left behind by a fine lad, Jamie Macfarlane of the glen, who got a travelling place with a gentleman going abroad all in haste-like,--one of these Americans who come crowding over in the season. He did not know what to do with the dog, so we just took her in at the manse till such time as a home could be found for her. You can have her if you will."The suggestion pleased me' lonely as I was, there was some cheer in the thought of even a dog's company. I put out my hand and she licked it as a seal of our alliance, and so the bargain was concluded."Ye'll have Graham here before long," he went on. "I met him driving over the hill to Neil Anderson's, and he said he would look in here on his way home. The road is passable all along, now the drifts have been cut through; and indeed the snow is disappearing fast with this warmer change. We have it on the ground for weeks together at this season as a rule; but I believe it is

going to prove a mild winter, for all the rigorous beginning.""And what do you do about service with the country in such a state ?" said Knollys. "I suppose you shut up the church ?""I have been here thirty years and over, and I only mind one occasion when the doors were closed all day through on the Sabbath, and that was when I was ill myself and unable to rise from my bed, and the weather was such we could not get a supply. Otherwise there has never failed to be a reading of the Bible and a prayer, and a short expounding if no more. But in the depth of winter as now, it has often been to no more numerous congregation than our own household--just the women-folk, and the children, if they were home for the holidays, and Madeline to lead the singing. That is my wife, you must know, and she has a sweet voice yet. It's a small place and a poor place--would seem so to you, doubtless, who are accustomed to the grand cathedrals and fine churches of the south; but to us who

are used to it, God's ear seems nearer to us under that low roof--readier to hear and we to speak--than where there are so many fine gauds to take off the attention. Ay, and there is something impressive about the stateliness I grant you--fit to stir an enthusiasm, but that is a poor staff to help ye to salvation. I have been there myself with the music rolling like a sea, and sweeping up the heart with it as it were to the throne, and every one singing out their prayers on the right note. But to me, who am a plain man, 'tis like that God Almighty would prefer them spoken best, as a man speaks to his friend when he means what he says and wants what he asks for, not sing-songed out in intoning. Music was meant for praise, I take it, but it's out o' place in prayer.  And how are you getting on, Mr Lavenham? Better since Mr Knollys came, I am glad to think.""When you wrote to him on my behalf, you added one more kindness to the long list I can never adequately repay. I am ashamed to think of all you have done for me, you

and Mrs Colquhoun both, and the trouble I have brought upon you.""Tut tut, Madeline and I are well pleased to help our fellows when we have a chance, or assuredly our Christian profession would not be worth much. And it is a boon to us to see a fresh face. We find the winter long with just our two selves in the house, now that the boys and girls are all away. An empty nest--that is what it is here, with all the young brood flown; and we feel it lonely at times. But it is the way the world goes on, and God's ordinance no doubt."I suppose when a man has been granted the mingled delight and care of children, their affection and companionship is a solace sorely missed when they go. Perhaps I too might have felt as this Colquhoun did, in years to come, had Iras been spared to me and to wear her crown of motherhood. But at the moment it seemed to my sorrowful envy that the man whose wife remained was rich beyond expression, and could have nothing to regret in any other loss.Mr Colquhoun got up and went to the window,--the one opposite the bed-foot, which, I found later, commanded the path of approach. "Graham has been quicker than I expected,--I suppose there proved not to be much amiss at Neil's. I thought I heard wheels, and there he is coming up the brae. I'll go down and meet him at the door, for I want him to take a look at Madeline when he's had his crack wi' you."CHAPTER XI.THE doctor's step was presently heard ascending the stair, and Nell promptly got off the bed--she has a fine instinct about those to whom she is unwelcome--and disposed of herself and her tail in a remote corner, unlikely to be trodden into. He amused me, this Dr Graham, with his abruptly positive ways and his sharp questions; but a doctor who is self-reliant inspires confidence, and with the patient's belief enlisted on the side of his remedies the battle is half won. I smiled to myself the dreary smile which perceives humour without mirth, as I thought of the theory he had evolved respecting me,--the theory with which he had inoculated Knollys,--and recognised the drift and direction of some

of his inquiries. He thought me better, he told Knollys after; I did not wander in conversation into any track of delusion, and now the fever had left me he believed I should rapidly gather strength. The consultation below seemed to be a long one; I heard the two voices rising and falling in argument, doubtless over the certificate. I was curious to know what had passed, and ready with a question when my friend returned to me."Well, what is the result?  I heard you wrangling down below. Have you convinced him there may by chance be a thing or two in the universe not included in his knowledge-box? ""I have shown him the certificate." Knollys was not good at beating about the bush, and presently it all came out. "He thinks with me that certainly there was a marriage, but he is stout in holding to his point of the delusion. But now he is inclined to make it retrospective. The intention of this marriage was concealed from your friends--from me at

any rate, and I think I know you more intimately than any one else in England. It was probably a hasty and ill-advised step, and upon it may have come some accident of discovery and disunion, which would be a shock to you and send your brain astray for the time.  And upon such a condition he thinks the hallucination took root and grew. You know, my dear fellow, it is impossible to expect him to believe that the dried-up corpse in the granary, centuries old as it is, could have been alive a month ago and your wife. Considered from that point, I cannot believe it either; though I do think there is some strange mystery at the bottom  of all this that none of our conjectures have touched as yet."This was my furthest point of advance with the doctor.  He believed--on the evidence of the certificate--that I had married Iras Charmian, with the conviction I had gone mad after the ceremony instead of before. He was right about my improvement: I  did gain strength rapidly in the days which 

followed. I was anxious to be up and doing, and forced myself to eat when food was dust and ashes to my palate, and abide by every rule which could further my purpose. Presently I was able to crawl from my bed to a chair--then to pace the room, Knollys giving me an arm; and after a further day to get down to the unknown regions below--to Mrs Colquhoun's sitting-room, where she lay on the sofa, a warm coverlet spread over her inactive feet, but with the glancing knitting-pins ever busy, and a bright word and smile ready for all comers. Finally to get out.I was wrapped up in coat and comforter as carefully by Knollys as if he had been a woman, and his arm steadied me as I drew in my first free breath of the keen air from the hills. The wintry landscape, which I had last seen dark with storm, now smiled under a glimpse of sunshine. The lower ground was crisped over with frost, the mountains still were white with those remembered snows, but the wide loch rippled steel-blue beneath a brighter sky. I took one turn up and down under the

shelter of the house, and then checked my companion."You know, Knollys, where I wish to go.""I was afraid you would wish it.  Leave it to-day, however. You are not strong enough yet.""I can wait no longer. I am stronger for action than suspense.  Take me where she is."We crossed the yard and went up an outer stone stair which led to the granary. Knollys undid the door and held it open, and I entered. A bare garret in the rafters, partly dark, for a piece of sacking hung over the unglazed window nailed to the upper beam. He drew this aside, and light flooded into the place, showing the coffin lying on the floor covered with a coarse sheet. At the other end, over the stable, hay was heaped up and winter roots; there was, too, some lumber and litter of boxes, out of which he drew one forward as a seat for me. I was glad to sink down on it, and for a brief moment I covered my face. Was it indeed Iras that the cloth and the

coffin-lid hid from me? A rude death-chamber this for my princess, daughter of Pharaohs as she was, and a sorry resting-place the pauper's coffin from which Knollys drew the sheet. This was spread on the floor to receive the body, and then together we raised the lid.There was not much to shock in that first view. The fur coat covered the straight lines of the form, the gauze veil which had once been mine concealed the face. With Knollys' help I lifted her out of the coffin for the examination on which I was bent--remembering in vivid contrast how once before I had raised her from such a resting-place. And even as then, the coil of long hair slipped undone from beneath the knot of the veil and fell over our hands--the same lengths of silky dark hair I had so often seen her twist up, and almost undimmed in its beauty. I cut off a tress to keep, and it lies before me now."Of course recognition is impossible," Knollys said, and he was right as to the face. That had changed and perished, as if from contact with the air; and so had the slender

feet which protruded beyond the wrappings, still bound into their sandals. The exposure of face and feet appeared to be the only disturbance of the original wrappings, which wound round and round the body in a regular pattern, securing the arms to the sides."I recognise the hair.  And I must look further: I want to examine the left arm. There was a lump on the bone above the wrist--it had been broken when she was a child, and set crooked. That is a mark which must remain.""But, Lavenham, cannot you see the thing  has never been opened any more than this? It is just as it was left centuries since. What is the use of looking for an arm you can never have seen before?   Don't put yourself to  further pain, but come away."For all answer I began to unwind the stiffened bandages, which became softer and finer in quality after the outer layer.  The usual small amulets were disposed amongst them, and they were to all appearance entirely undisturbed. As I unwound the second strip 

from about the neck, the gleam of an ornament came into view; and there round the shrivelled throat hung the chain of emeralds I knew so well, showing the broken wires of the seven pendants--the first with a tiny fragment of composition adhering, as I had noticed at Melrose.  I pointed this out in dumb show to Knollys, who had heard its history, and thenceforward he made no further protest. I am aware the evidence is inconclusive, and that it may be said by those who are skilled in objection that I had unwound and prepared, and then rewound the body, copying the fashions of the ancient embalmers which I had studied,--and all this for some occult purpose of self or other deception. But, conclusive or not, it was sufficient deeply to impress my friend.These upper bandages fastened the arms to the sides, and when released each was rolled in its own separate swathes, concealing the hands.  When undone, these were of more natural appearance than the face, or the feet which were almost those of a skeleton; and

they retained to a great extent the flesh and form. It was the left wrist I wanted to examine, but Knollys' exclamation drew my attention to the hand.  There on the attenuated finger, still a finger and not a bone, was a new broad wedding-ring of  shining gold.As I looked at it with that dead stick of a hand in mine, the slender small hand I knew so well, it slid from the nerveless finger by its own weight and dropped into my palm. I passed it to Knollys that he might see for  himself the modern hall-mark, that it was really a Victorian ring on the hand of a mummy three thousand years old; and more than that, it bore our two names engraved within, as had been done for me in Edinburgh. The special token of identity for which I looked, the distorted bone, was  plainly visible through the shrunken yellow skin which covered it; and I made Knollys examine it as well. "Yes," I said, "there is no doubt of it. This is my wife." Had I kept alive till now, unknown to 

myself, some hope not utterly extinct that the body would prove a substitution--that Iras in the flesh might somewhere and somehow be living still!-for it seemed as if I had suddenly and for the first time plumbed the full black depth of my despair. I laid her back presently on the floor, for at the moment the light weight seemed more than I could hold; and then I remember Knollys dragging me to the air of the window and holding a flask to my lips."It has been too much for you. I was afraid of this. I blame myself, for I ought not to have let you come."I shook my head. "It has done me no harm. I wanted to see for myself: it was better than suspense.""Let me lay her back in the coffin"--he said it no longer--"and then come with me to the house. Do not try yourself any more--to-day."I have regretted since that I did not investigate further, and set at rest the question whether the body had been prepared in the

usual way by incision and with spices, or wound whole in its wrappings in a living trance as had been declared. But I could not depute any such examination to another, and to proceed with it myself was out of my power. After an interval, and with Knollys to help me, I rewound the bandages about her as smoothly as I could, but with vastly different effect to the art we had disturbed; wrapped her again in the shroud of her furs, with the veil about the perished face, and laid her back in the rough coffin. He had unclasped the necklace, and I put it in my breast with the ring and the tress of hair, and then we stood up to go. " I may fasten the coffin now, may I not?" he said, and I signed an assent.I think he went back to do it, but I am not sure when the closing actually took place; all that night the hammering of coffin-nails seemed to pursue me in my dreams. The question next to be decided was the question of a grave. Mr Colquhoun consented that one should be dug at the edge of the burying-

ground of Cruach-fruin, where it verged upon the open moor, and promised that the spot should be undisturbed. No Scottish burying-places are consecrated, so there was no objection on that score to a heathen interment.  The grave was prepared overnight, and early on the morning of the second day, before it was fully sunrise, Knollys and the man who acted as sexton carried the rough coffin between them down the granary stairs and across the yard on to the hill, and I followed with Nell at my heels. I neither expected nor desired other companionship, but Mr Colquhoun came across from the house when all was ready and joined the procession. Perhaps his presence was as well, as it overawed the sexton into silence, and spared me remarks which might have given pain. I was known in the district, it seemed, as "the mad gentleman who thinks he has lost his wife"; and the man's looks were inquisitive if his tongue was mute. But there could have been little in my dull apathy of sorrow to gratify the curious.The sun came up with a flush of crimson behind the mountains on the east of the loch, but on our western side the cloud hung heavy about the hill-tops, and began to descend in snow. The feathery flakes she loved fell softly on the uncovered coffin as it was carried before me, and into the open grave dug deep in the sandy soil--a hard task, doubtless, in the frost. There was no delay; the coffin was lowered immediately, and the sexton began to fling the earth in over it in heavy spadefuls which rattled on the wood. I stood and watched him, the dog pressing close against me, and looking up in my face now and then with a low whine. Finally the mound was heaped up and shaped, and the man took himself and his spade away; and then, as I did not move, Knollys and the minister, who had waited at a distance, came up and stood beside me."His mercy is over all His works," said the minister, as he stood at the foot of the grave. "It was by His ordinance that the 

soul which once inhabited this body was called into existence in those early ages which knew not the light of the Gospel; and we may surely hope that such ignorance will not be laid to its charge. Let us look to it that we with our knowledge fall not into the greater condemnation."Such was the funeral oration over my wife.I bade farewell to the manse that morning, expressing my gratitude as well as I could to the Colquhouns for their timely succour and generous hospitality.  I would fain have repaid the charges they must have been put to by my illness, but this Mr Colquhoun would not hear of, and insisted on considering me as a guest. I could only resolve in secret that a certain Eastern carpet of mine should travel northwards, where its rich tones would brighten the homely parlour, and the thick warmth of it be welcome underfoot. My expressions to Hannah were less difficult; and, the farewells accomplished, I turned my back on Cruach-fruin, and, leaning on Knollys,

walked slowly down to Inverardoch, Nell following my fortunes.We were to stay that night at the hotel, and cross the loch next morning to a point where a carriage was ordered to be in waiting to take us on by easy stages to Callander. The rooms prepared for us were those I had occupied before; and still in the window of the sitting-room was the couch on which Iras had lain through the hours of our last day.  I sat down on it and gazed round me with  that dreary realisation of change and loss  under which the heart sinks low. There on a side-table was the very book she had laid aside, and in which, as I showed Knollys presently, I had written her name--"Iras Lavenham, from her husband."A meal was presently served to us in the  sitting-room, and again I had to run the gantlet of curious glances: doubtless I had been a subject of gossip here as at the manse. As we sat at table we were reflected in a pier-glass at the side--a bit of decoration which, as I remembered, had amused Iras formerly; and

I was able to judge of the alteration in my person that had come about since last I saw myself thus doubled. A haggard object I was truly, with my cropped head and sunken cheeks, and shoulders bowed by weakness into the similitude of age. But my appearance mattered little: she could not now be pained by any change in me. I was glad to go back to the sofa and lie there while Knollys went out to make some needed arrangements for our journey on the morrow: it was not long before he returned."The people here say they have had some boxes of yours in charge, Lavenham, and that you will find them in the bedroom. I thought we had had all your things up at the manse?"I had totally forgotten Iras's belongings. Surely here would be another fragment of evidence for her reality! Before I could explain a knock came at the door, and it partly opened. "Could I speak to Mr Lavenham himself?" a voice said.It was the innkeeper, Fergus Macgregor.

I had not seen him since the interview in which I offered almost all my worldly wealth for means of transport, and he refused me: I know not whether that recollection dwelt in his memory as it did in mine. He looked somewhat scared or shocked at my appearance, and though he glanced at me now and again in furtive fashion from under his shaggy eyebrows, the cloth cap he had removed on entering, and was now twisting in his fingers, seemed to have the main share of his regard."It was just the trunks I had to speak about, Mr Lavenham,-the two trunks and the bit bag which ye left behind with us. Being in charge by the accident as it were of your absence, I thought it right to look to them; and seeing none of them were fastened I put some strips across, and sealed them at the two ends so as to prevent meddling. I shall be glad to know, sir, that you have found them all right before you take them on with you. That is what I wished to say."I thanked him, of course, for the attention, and Knollys offered him a glass of his own wine which was on the table; but my presence, or some other cause unknown, seemed to strike him with discomfort, and after another furtive glance or two in my direction he made us an abrupt adieu and took his departure, closing the door behind him with great care and gentleness. When he was safely out of earshot Knollys burst out laughing. "Would you not say to look at him that he had stolen half your valuables instead of locking them them up for security? That face and that manner would be enough to hang him if he were in the dock on a criminal charge. And yet I know from the Colquhouns that he bears the character of being an upright, honest-dealing, God-fearing sort of person, and is respected all over the district. Mr Colquhoun had only one thing against him, and that, as I said, might be forgiven to a Highlander. He has an odd leaven of superstition about him, and is supposed at times to have the gift of second sight,--seeing corpse-candles, and

shrouds breast-high about people, and a few other pleasant trifles of that sort! You will have to look into those boxes before we go."I nodded assent, but chiefly present to my mind was a query whether the innkeeper's gift and the innkeeper's discomfort were consequent the one on the other, and whether he had seen any shroud breast-high upon me.Knollys had some work to finish ready for  despatch when we were again in the neighbourhood of railroads; and through the early afternoon he was diligently occupied, while I  lay idle with a book before me--the book from which I had taught my wife, and which was made sacred by her use and her name. Something of the faint exquisite perfume that pervaded all her belongings still seemed to breathe from it: it was only a hornbook, but I looked at it with dim eyes. The light had already begun to fade when my friend got up from his task and stretched out his long arms  in a refreshing yawn."That is done with, thank goodness. I can put the package under cover by lamplight, so what do you say, Lavenham, to opening the boxes now? I suppose a glance into each of them will be enough. Are the contents of value?"For answer I told him what they contained--the outfit I had bought in Edinburgh for my wife. They stood in the bedroom which had been prepared for me; and, as Macgregor said, they were strapped only--the locks were loose. I wondered at this, remembering Iras's exact particularity about her keys and pride in them; and then it struck me how the keys must have gone with the dress she wore when I carried her out into the snow. We broke Macgregor's seals and raised the lids; and there a surprise awaited me--a shock even, which perhaps might be thought disproportionate to its cause.The trunks were full. Layer on layer within them we found the dresses and the linen I bought in the Edinburgh shop--new, unworn, undisturbed--the keys which should have

fastened them enclosed in an inner envelope. The very grey homespun she had worn continually, and in which she was dressed at the last, lay untouched in the box folded in wrapping paper as it was sent. To all appearance no eye had looked at the things, no hand had unfolded them, since they were put up and packed to my order. And yet day by day my wife had worn and used what I had given her, how I cannot explain, and can only testify to the fact with most solemn asseveration of its truth. Have inanimate things souls--spiritual doubles? and could it have been these she used and I saw? One solitary token of the dearly remembered past alone repaid my search--a tiny spray of white heather with a silver pin to fasten it, which I had bought for her in Rothesay, was still brooched among the ruffles of the yellow gown. I had pinned it there, with a kiss for payment, the evening of our arrival; and the bit of dried flower, frail as it was, had outlived our brief happiness. But that was all. Everything else, the

yellow gown itself, was unused, creaseless, fresh as prepared for sale. Even for me a deeper shade of perplexity had gathered round the mystery, and the chances of vindicating the truth to others seemed yet more remote.CHAPTER XII.Certain points of time stand out more clearly than others in retrospect, like the hill-tops of a submerged country. I can recall vividly our passage across the loch next morning--the heavy ferry-boat wide in the beam conveying us and our baggage, while I sat with the dog at my knee looking back at the receding shore--looking my last at the Hill of Sorrow, and thinking of the grave I left there, and how the sods had fallen heavy on that coffin only four-and-twenty hours before. My eyes will never again look upon Cruach-fruin in the flesh; but a day will come when this worn-out body of mine will return there, and be carried feet foremost step by step up the way along which I struggled in vain. "You will

bring me back when the end comes, and lay me beside her?" I said to Knollys. He tried to say I was like to be the survivor, so his word would count for little; but I think something in my face checked him, and he gave the pledge--gave it gravely and fully as I desired.We reached Callander that afternoon, and Edinburgh the day following, driving from the station to the same Princes Street hotel at which Iras and I had stayed at the time of our marriage. I turned back the pages of the visitors' book as far as the end of October, and showed Knollys our names written; and the account-register of the hotel afterwards proved that two persons had been charged for in accommodation, and meals served to a private sitting-room. Individual recollection of us could not be expected in that large place, full of an ever-changing multitude of comers and goers. A packet of letters was given out of the office pigeon-hole to Knollys; and then I was glad at once to go up-stairs to my room, for the two days' travelling had

been a heavy tax on what strength I had regained.Knollys came to my bedside later and read me those letters. They were replies to inquiries he had written--on my behalf, but in his own name--from Cruach-fruin to such places on our tour as my shattered memory could recall. He made some business pretext for the need of information, and asked--first, whether it was correct that a person of my name had stayed there between certain dates; secondly, if accompanied by a lady; and, in the third place, for a personal description of my companion. He also wrote to our fellow-traveller in the train going up to Scotland--the man who pressed his card on me, which was still preserved in my pocket-book. The testimony of his reply was complete: my voluble friend remembered me, remembered a pleasant conversation which--confound him!--had whiled away the tedium of the journey, remembered also that I was travelling with a lady. Here the letter evinced some curiosity and a disposi-

tion to be facetious; but described Iras as tall, of an elegant figure, dark - haired, and closely veiled.Another affirmative reply was from the inn at Melrose: Mr and Mrs Lavenham had certainly stayed there between the dates named. Mrs Lavenham was a lady of dark complexion, tall and good-looking, and apparently much younger than her husband. The charges at the inn were certainly for two persons, and were paid by Mr Lavenham on departure. From Rothesay the hotel-keeper replied that the names asked for were signed in his book, and the account would doubtless be rendered correctly; but he was unable to trace items, and had no personal recollection. I have explained before that it was impossible for me to write to Largs, and from Ardrishaig no reply reached us. At Port Sonachan there was again the record of the written names, but no description could be given--only the testimony that the lady and gentleman had hired a boat and gone out rowing on the lake. The letter from Taynuilt was curious. Here

was the point of my first breakdown with illness, and no entry of name could be traced; but it was remembered that a gentleman, who seemed a great invalid, arrived posting from Dalmally as described, and was laid up at the hotel several days. He came with a quantity of luggage, but was not accompanied by any lady. It was however declared by the servant who attended to his rooms that a lady was with him on several occasions, who more than once shared such meals as were served to him, and was of course charged for. It was not known who this person was, but they concluded she had come in from some house in the neighbourhood; and then followed a description based on the maid's recollection, which agreed substantially with that given by others.This was the last link. From Oban came a letter of some length written in a woman's hand, detailing how a gentleman had inscribed the names Mr and Mrs Lavenham in the book, though he had arrived alone; and how, on departing, he insisted on his bill being altered to charge for two persons instead of

one. The writer concluded at the time that he was insane; and if his friends wished to claim for the surplus charge, it should of course be refunded.Here was food for thought in the wakeful watches of that night. Did the evidence point to a gradual dissolving and withdrawal--save in its manifestation to me--of that personality which at first was palpable to all, becoming less and less apparent as the pendants were abstracted one by one? But even from this view there were discrepancies which it was difficult to reconcile.  Neither from Taynuilt nor Oban came any mention of the mysterious long bundle wrapped in fur which was observed at Inverardoch, which I was said to have carried in so carefully from the carriage, and to have borne in my arms when I departed. Next day Knollys and I were to have gone together to the lawyer, but I found it all I could do to dress and crawl into the sitting-room. The expedition for me was out of the question; but time pressed, and so I consented that my friend should undertake

it alone. As he was departing, he turned back from the door. "Give me an authority for the post-office, Lavenham.  There are letters lying there for you, I know, for I forwarded a second and third packet from town, not knowing any further address."I did as desired, and was left shivering by the fireside with a plaid about me; for Edinburgh can be chill in early January-colder by far, I thought it, than at Cruach-fruin. Nell sat beside me with her chin on my knee and her wistful eyes on my face; the unusual surroundings must have been strange to the country-bred dog, and that may have drawn the bond of our alliance closer: she would not leave me for Knollys. Sometimes I wonder whether in the clear instinct of her canine mind she has a foreboding knowledge that our companionship will be brief--that the master she has chosen to follow is nigh to setting out on a journey she cannot accompany, by a path into the unknown dark which he must tread alone, without even a dog's fellowship!That strange trick of hers--that pantomime

of watching an unseen entrance--had been displayed here as well as at Cruach-fruin, so it had no dependence on locality. I had been thinking of it, doubtless, as I sat over the fire and dozed in my weakness, so it was not wonderful the idea should still have possessed me as the doze deepened into a dream. The dream Nell looked round at the door with the same rising of the hair and interrogative bearing I had noticed at the Manse, left my knee, and went forward the usual half-dozen steps; and then I became aware that a lady had entered and was standing just within. A stranger, for I knew no one who could be wearing the deep-mourning garb of an English widow, with a crape veil hanging over her face.  As the dog approached her she lifted both hands and put it back-and lo! the face revealed was the face of Iras.A cry broke from my lips in the overmastering surprise-love and anguish and yearning blent in one, and with the cry I woke. The entering figure was Knollys, and he was stooping down to pat the dog."Well, I have seen Macpherson, and he  is as positive a witness as even you could desire."" He remembered the circumstances ?""Perfectly. When I got to the office there was some demur about showing me up--I had no appointment, and Mr Macpherson was going out; but I wrote on my card, 'About Mr Lavenham's marriage--urgent,' and I think curiosity prevailed. He is a queer old  file; but he seems to have had an impressionable spot in his heart, and your wife found it out."Not wonderful that, I thought; but I did not interrupt his story with remark."Did I come from you, he asked, when I was planted opposite. I said yes, and that you would have accompanied me but for indisposition.  I had your authority for the questions I was about to put to him. Then I unfolded the certificate. 'You are one of the witnesses named here, Mr Macpherson,' I said, 'and I conclude you can bear testimony that all was in due form.' He assented, and

I went on to say what we agreed upon. That you had married a person unknown to your friends, and had since experienced a severe illness with partial loss of memory; and as your wife was not now with you, it had been suggested that the marriage was a delusion, and there had been no real woman in the case at all. He would be doing you a service, I said, if he could give conclusive testimony one way or the other, either for the fact of the marriage or against it. That was how you permitted me to put the case, was it not, if needful to give reasons ? ""Yes; as much of the truth as was necessary. To explain the whole would be impossible.""He did not waste many words on me in replying. 'I should have thought the certificate here was vara conclusive evidence in itself,' he said, in his slow Scotch speech. 'But you can tell Mr Lavenham I will come forward at any time to give testimony. I drew up the declaration as between the parties, and witnessed their signatures, together with

a clerk of mine whom I can produce; and I went with them before the sheriff-substitute. It was all in due order, Mr Knollys. There can be no doubt whatever that Mr Lavenham was legally married on the day named.' Of course I expected this reply; the gist of the matter was to come. Had he observed Mrs Lavenham, and could he describe her for me? Did she appear to understand what was going forward, or did she behave in any way with peculiarity or like a foreigner? 'Do you want to upset the marriage on the ground of insanity?' was his counter-question; and I think those small eyes of his are the very keenest I ever encountered. I answered that I wanted to upset nothing,--my motive was solely to sift out the truth from an accidental confusion; and your anxiety was altogether for incontestable proof that the marriage had taken place. 'I should have been sorry to hear the contrary,' he said, 'or that there was anything adverse to that pretty young creature, who seemed so confiding and gentle, and all that a young bride should be. I did not get

a good view of her face, Mr Knollys, for she wore her veil down, as was doubtless natural; but she had dark eyes and pretty hair, and a clear complexion, though maybe a bit brown, with the blood showing up in it when the ring was put on her finger. Ay, she understood it all well enough, and I noticed no peculiarity except that she seemed to turn to her husband about everything, as a wife should. That she was a foreigner born you can see here in the particulars; and when she spoke it was in a hesitating way, like one choosing among unfamiliar words. Now and then, when I spoke to her, her husband touched her shoulder to make her attend; I noticed nothing more.' That is all about our interview, as nearly as I can remember to tell you. You can see the original document with the signatures if you like to make application."The old lawyer's words, as repeated by Knollys, brought that notable morning vividly to mind.  It was plain to see Macpherson's testimony had weight with him: I had surely

succeeded in proving my wife's reality beyond doubt, though there was still the unaccountable  confusion and conflicting evidence of those  last weeks of gradual withdrawal--still the broken link which failed to connect the Iras I had married with the body coffined in the grave at Cruach-fruin. But I was in no mood for argument: I could do nothing then but turn my face to the wall in keen realisation of my loss. I think Knollys saw how it was with me, for he talked on about indifferent matters--the newspaper in his hand, the latest intelligence on some point round which popular interest was just then astir, and, last but not least, his own impressions of Edinburgh, which he was visiting for the first time.  I was sorry the royal city had not put on a brighter aspect. The outside world was grim and cold, a north-east wind swept the streets and shook the windows of the room in which we sat; the fine outline of the Castle and St Giles's crown on the hill opposite were  veiled and dim with mist.  It was not till  later in the evening that he put his hand to 

his breast-pocket with a start of sudden recollection."I had quite forgotten your letters, Lavenham. Here they are, the two covers I sent on: stale news by this time, no doubt !"With one exception the letters were unimportant-the usual accumulation of circulars and small notifications of indebtedness which come in the common course of post. The exception bore a foreign postmark, and was addressed in a woman's hand--written thick and large, as if with some affectation of importance.  The signature at the foot of the last page was Amelie St Heliers.My life had changed so utterly in current and horizon since all the early trouble of threatening appearances, that I had completely forgotten the letter I sent to Madame St Heliers' address in France, and the elucidation I expected from her reply. I knew more now than she could tell me. I knew now that what I saw in London and on the sea-shore was Savak the priest, dead to bodily life, but

alive for evil across all the gap of centuries,--my wife's enemy and mine.Though I had ceased to expect it or to look for enlightenment from this quarter, I turned back to the commencement and read the letter with some interest. I have it by me, and will transcribe it here."You ask a question it is difficult to answer,"  said the letter. "I can but tell you facts, and leave you to draw your own conclusions. Any explanation I might give of them would be  based on theories of which you are probably  ignorant, and a system of belief with which you would wholly disagree. I am a clairvoyante, which means I have by nature that opening of the inner eye which is spoken of in the Scriptures. I do not exercise the gift at will, as we open our natural eyes when we desire to see; the faculty is fitful, and not always a source of pleasure to the possessor: for some occult reason the dwellers on the threshold are nearer to our perceptions than the ministers of grace. But, granted that drawbacks exist, I would not forego my advantage and be dim-

eyed like my fellows.  The gift is of great service to me in my practice as a palmist. I read the chart of the lines, it is true, but I also am able to look intuitively into the sphere of the personality and perceive something of the spiritual affinities which each draws to himself, or which are drawn to him by the operation of other laws. I knew nothing of you when I saw you at Mrs Bevis Payne's--neither name nor history; but directly I entered the room, my attention was drawn to you in a way I shall not easily forget. Close to you, within your sphere, stood the man you call the Egyptian, and I knew instantly that you were menaced by a great danger. Whether when you read this it will have come and passed I know not, or whether it may still be in the future, but it seemed to me that it pressed very near. I determined to speak to you, to give you warning if possible; so on some pretext I induced our hostess to send you in to me for an interview: I knew you would not seek me of yourself. What I saw further confirmed the first impression; I

spoke as plainly to you as I dared, and I would now repeat the warning in case it is not yet too late. But of information I can give you little. I am ignorant, as you profess to be, who the Egyptian is and why you are persecuted. I do not even know certainly whether he belongs to the next world, or is some spiritual projection of an enemy yet alive. But a point of change is come or coming which will render you vulnerable to his attack, and he will smite and not spare. I would advise you to walk warily and set your expectations low, and neither love nor hate: the affections as well as the passions disarm our defences. I know and have seen nothing of you beyond the one evening, and now the history of your letter; and I certainly never was in any Brighton church. I can say no more."I was able to accompany Knollys the day before we left Edinburgh, when he went to examine that original document of the declaration of marriage which he had made requisition

to see.  There was one notable peculiarity about it when produced. While my signature and those of the witnesses remained plain to read in all the ordinary blackness of ink, that of Iras was faded so as to be barely legible. I could just distinguish the faint brown char- acters I had taught her to trace, but the beloved name was without doubt gradually disappearing; a few more months and the paper will be blank. It matters little; there is one place where her name is written indelibly, and that is my heart.I wished to revisit Largs before we went south, and Knollys was considerate enough to put aside his own urgency to suffer me to do this. I felt positive that once there I could find the house at which we stayed, and I was especially anxious the lodging-keeper's testimony to my wife's reality should be added to the rest. Her name had escaped my memory, though at the time I certainly knew it: the name of the house, if indeed it owned one, I may never have heard,--for while there I neither wrote nor received letters, so was not

concerned with the address. The aspect of  the little place, the rough stage on which we  landed, were all familiar enough, and I set out confidently along the shore, Knollys accompanying me; but the house had so disappeared, or changed from the recollection I preserved of it, that identification became impossible. As a last resource we inquired at  each door along the sea-front which advertised lodgings, asking if a married couple named  Lavenham had stayed there in the previous November; but we were everywhere met by an invariable negative, and none of the house-mistresses whom  we disturbed from their avocations in the least resembled the landlady of whom I was in search. I went back to Glasgow profoundly discouraged, and from there we took the night-mail up to town.I was glad we travelled back by night--that the darkness hid from me the changing panorama of landscape on which I looked last with Iras when she found the world so fair. It was only a broken sleep which visited my narrow couch amidst the swing and rattle

of the train, speeding southwards as if the great metropolis drew it like a magnet; and in the watches of that night I had time to realise what the dismal home-coming must be, and what the effort which would lie before me. It behoved me for the sake of my manhood to piece together what shattered fragments remained of the hope and purpose of my past,--to take up life anew out of the grip of despair. I had put the contemplation of it behind me; yet now that the hour was at hand I knew I had dreaded it in secret for days and weeks.London looks inexpressibly dreary at seven on a still dark early morning of mid-winter: wet pavements were shining under a pale glimmer of gas, and the air was thick with the drizzle of a falling fog. Knollys went with me to G---- Street, and there Mrs Mappinbeck had fires and breakfast prepared for us--a breakfast I could not touch. He was loth to leave me when that was over, but he had business to attend to--business which had for too long been neglected for my sake. It was necessary I should face the long lonely day,

and the procession of its kind which must follow before the end comes--that end which still delays."I will look in this evening and see how  you are getting on," he said, as at last he got up to go. "And to-morrow we must see  about consulting some first-rate doctor, who will cure you up in a trice, and make you  fitter than you have been for months. Try to get some rest in the interval, for I do not  expect you slept much last night, any more  than I."It was a long day, but it wore to an end at last.  Late in the afternoon I went into the studio, overcoming a first reluctance, determining to face alone the sight of the empty sarcophagus. The lid was upon it, and when raised there still remained within the resinous inner case I had cut through, and the rags and shreds of the wrapper in which Iras had lain. The husk which had enclosed her through that mysterious survival  by which she was preserved to me had a

certain lingering touch of her presence about it which made me feel for the time less desolate--the sort of dreary comfort I might have had in sitting by her grave. I rang for the servant and ordered fire and gas, and settled myself there for the evening with Nell lying at my feet.The room was eloquent to me of that former scene--of her revival and of our meeting; and as I mused upon it there came sharply to mind the evidence of the tablet. I wished to see again the lines traced by my enemy, and to have it at hand for exhibition to Knollys; and, as well as feeble strength would permit, I searched the place, but failed to find it. I remembered how I had cast it from me face downwards at Iras's entreaty, and how there had appeared above it for one fleeting instant the awful similitude of the face. Mrs Mappinbeck and the servant professed to know nothing of it when I came to inquire, and possibly it may have been thrown away as rubbish when the room was swept after our departure. I drew paper and ink

before me, and it was then I began to set down from memory the words I remembered to have read. I have written them once already in these pages, but I will repeat them here:--"I, the priest Savak, servant of Sebek, have sealed the virgin, the daughter of Khames, in trance according to the Voice of the Oracle. Not of this land or generation is her lover; but he yet unborn that awakes her from sleep before the seven ages have passed over, his she will be. And if the seven ages pass without awakening, she is dust and she remains mine. To this she submits with knowledge, having denied herself to me in marriage; and, being obedient to the Voice of the Oracle, goes down alive into the tomb, willing to sleep. And I, Savak, do seal her in the inner chamber to be mine; for were it seventy ages instead of seven, and were the land perished under our feet that abides continually, I would pursue her until she turn to me. And I, Savak, do seal the inner chamber with my curse, and 

with the curse of my God, which shall dwell with terror upon him that meddleth and upon him that openeth. And to him, the lover-- in the ages to come, and the generations to come, should he find her over my body and the guard of the tomb and the guard of the curse, I do set against him wager of battle that his days be not long in the land; neither hers to whom life returns and youth returns for seven spaces, according to the ordinance of the eternal gods."Wager of battle!--if that had lain between us, who was the conqueror, he or I? The life was broken within me and I was left solitary; but the Iras who had turned from him had loved me, and I could be confident that wherever she might be, and however it might fare with her in the dimness beyond, she loved me still. There passed into my mind in that hour some apprehension of how the power of the enemy had spent its permitted force against our union on earth, and could touch us no more: the Hereafter--that Hereafter of which I, a doubter, had received

such tremendous evidence--alone would decide with whom victory lay. I remembered the words Iras had spoken when first the Shadow touched us which was to widen into black eclipse--how through death she was to be preserved mine, as at first through centuries of its semblance. The wound of the foe had smitten deep into my life, but were the veil of earthly illusion withdrawn, it might show him defeated by his own act, and the triumph not with the strong. Was this stirring of the soul to perceive the aspects of eternity a  whisper from a source beyond itself? or was it born only of the craving of a sick fancy?  Was the victory hers and mine? and after all was there hope in mine end?I questioned to the void--no voice answered; my head sank on my breast. But in the stillness the dog got up from my feet again as if recognising an entrance, followed across the room to the sarcophagus, and then returned to me. I had grown to attach little importance to this demonstration, for which there was never any visible cause; but now I rose,

and by some instinct again pushed back the lid of the shell in which she had lain--the elaborate carven lid, with its strange semi-human form and grotesque decoration--and lo! in the empty hollow, green and fresh as if just divided from the tree, there lay a branch of palm.Since then months have gone by, winter is no more, spring is upon us, and the earth rejoices,--we shall soon be in touch with summer. I was told at first that the more genial weather would bring back my strength; but now the doctor looks graver--talks of persistent anaemia, and says my heart must have been injured by the struggle through the snow. I swallow his horrible compounds and his marrow-grease, and am generally biddable--because Knollys is anxious; and in these days I abstain from argument. I know the great man's theory about me, and how he disposes of my "delusion" on the score of previous entanglement and conspiracy--with Skipton in the plot doubtless, and probably Abd-el-Moluk to boot;

and how he considers the Egyptian sunstroke affected my brain, and wove a chain of perfectly accountable circumstances into a supernatural romance. Knollys hangs suspended between us like Mahomet's coffin--he can neither quite credit me nor wholly believe the doctor; the narrowing faculty which he calls common-sense is with him a stone of stumbling and rock of offence, as it is to so many. But no brother could have extended to brother greater kindness than he has shown to me, and we are not likely to quarrel because he is unconvinced. Mrs Mappinbeck is much softened and sees to my comfort with solicitude: I am now her only lodger, as Lady Wilkinson of aristocratic memory has departed to other climes. I do not think she would object in these days to the introduction of a dozen mummies if I desired to have them; and she even tolerates Nell, which at first was i difficulty. Knollys has promised to take care of Nell when the end comes. The doctor has certified me sane enough to make a will, and indeed I

have no kindred to dispute such disposition as I choose to make of my little property. I think it will please me afterwards as well as now to know that Knollys and Madge can be happy without the long waiting they have made up their minds to endure, and that the matter of employment will cease to be so anxious a necessity. This wasted body of mine is to be taken the long journey northwards; the grave on the Hill of Sorrow will be opened once more. Knollys has promised to lay me beside her, and to set up a white cross over us, writing upon it, plain for all to read, the names of Ralph Lavenham and Iras Lavenham his wife.THE END.Advertisement included in the back of Douglas's Iras.