"True," assented the other, "and possibly the race three thousand years ago differed materially from the degenerate Sphinx-like personalities of the hieroglyphics. We must get Biggins of the Smithsonian to give us his opinion." "Never!" cried Morewood, thrusting the negative in his breast. "But in the interest of science----" protested Dunbarton. "Science?" Morewood returned scornfully; "what has science to do with this? What right have I to betray a lady's confidence?" Dunbarton made a sign of impatience. "Your lady has been dead a matter of three thousand years or more," he remarked. "That's not true!" the other contradicted, warmly. "I tell you, man, that woman is alive to-day. Don't ask me to explain the unexplainable. I simply know that she lives, as young and innocent as every feature of her face proclaims her. For years, for centuries, perhaps, she has been trying to make herself known to the stupid brutes who have been incapable of comprehending. But now, thank heaven, she has selected me to do her will--whatever it may be--and I shall consecrate my life to her!" He grew very pale as he spoke, but there was a rapt joy in his face. "See here, old man," Dunbarton remonstrated kindly, with a hand on his shoulder, "you're rather overwrought just now, and I don't blame you. But take a friend's advice, and don't get spoony on a girl so very much older than yourself. It never turns out well." "That's my affair!" Morewood said, doggedly. "Of course, of course!" Dunbarton assented. "She's awfully pretty, I admit, and no doubt well connected; but, even if we overlook her playful little way of killing people, think of the difficulties about meeting, and that sort of thing." "I'm willing to leave it all to her," Morewood said. "A priestess of Amen Ra must have learned by this time every mystery of life and death, and I am confident that in the proper time and place I shall meet her face to face." "Old chap," Dunbarton pronounced with conviction, "what you need is a good night's rest." But Morewood did not reply to this, for the gentle swaying of an Eastern curtain just then caught his eye. It hung before the open door of the studio, and the movement might have come from some breath of air. But immediately it occurred again, and this time accompanied by the vision of a human hand, clearly in search of something on which to rap. "There's someone there," said the painter, whose eyes had followed the other's, and he spoke lower: "Possibly a model in search of work." Then he raised his voice in an encouraging "Come in!"--the tone that painters use to models who are often pretty and sometimes timid. Morewood paid no attention; he stood transfixed, watching the swaying curtain. His finger tips tingled with a strange electric current and his pulses beat with an unreasoning hope. Then Dunbarton said, a little louder: "Come in; please come in."