People often ask me why I gave up a promising business career and devoted myself to traveling, in which I find no pleasure; exploring, for which I have no taste; and archæology, which is to me the most tiring of pursuits. The question has never been answered, save by the statement that there is no reason to give, which involves the telling of an incredible story. There are two or three to whom I would like to tell it. If they survive me, they shall know--to that end, these pages. It is my conviction that whatever intelligent man has known, he has tried to record in some way--that living truths, new to us, may be gleaned from the stone tablets of races extinct for ages. For such a truth, I am searching. One man found it, but he is dead. His spirit I have called up, as the woman at Endor called up Samuel, and questioned it. He told me that the knowledge had sent it to the world of shades before its time, and had put power into the hands of an evil one, who had bidden it never in any place to reveal to any mortal what it knew. “Even yet I must obey her,” said the spirit of Paul Glen; “but what you seek is written.” As yet, I have not read. Many strange things have I unearthed, but never this that I seek. Now, I will write my story. You who read it may believe or not, as you see fit. I know that it is true. It is many years now since I went South to visit my sister Helen. I had not seen her since the day of her marriage, three years before, till she met me at the door of her own home and welcomed me in her old sweet and quiet manner. It seemed to me, at the first glance, that her face had aged too much, and that a certain once fine expression--a suggestion of latent determination--had overdeveloped, and marked her with stern lines. From the first moment, too, I feared the existence of a trouble in her life, of which her letters had given no hint. She seemed, though, cheerful enough. She led the way into a great room that was shaded and cool and full of the scent of lilacs. With a motion of her hand, she dismissed three or four black maids, whom she had been assisting or instructing at some sewing work, and they went out, courtesying and showing their white, even teeth at the door. A fourth did not leave, but retired to a far end of the room and went on with the sewing. I noticed what a tiny garment she was making, and what a sharply cut silhouette her face made against the white curtain of the window by which she sat. Helen chatted away, apologizing for her husband’s absence, asking a host of questions, and planning some pleasure for every one of the days of my stay with her. I lay back in my chair, with a feeling of languid content, and listened. When Helen suggested sleep and refreshment, I declined both, feeling no need of anything but her presence and that delicious room, the atmosphere of which was laden with rest as with the scent of the lilacs.