He broke off. He had said more than he had intended to say. Jim stared curiously. “How so?” he inquired. “Do they drown one of the twins in those parts? Which one do they keep? Who decides? Answer me that--the local witch doctor?” “Forget it!” Barry urged, “and talk sense. You have seen Zalithea--many times, now----” “Undoubtedly. She’s A 1 at Cupid’s--a first-class risk--Bachelor’s Bane, Incorporated.” “You know her rather imperious spirit.” “I do. She has practised hard on me.” “But _I’m_ crazy about her, Jim! And I’m dying to tell her so! But how can I?” “How can you? Easily. You’re not dumb.” “She has scarcely any English.” “Press your hand to your heart and kneel at her feet.” “It isn’t that. She’s our guest. I have no right----” “Cable the sable parent. Say, ‘Dear Sir: With reference to your charming daughter----’” “Jim! you’re not helping me! And, anyway, that’s not all.” Jim realized that his friend was really serious. He listened, without facetious comments, while Barry hesitantly outlined a hypothetical case. He spoke of a famous physician of the East who had discovered a method of prolonging life for several hundreds of years. He could not bring himself to speak of _thousands!_ He asked him if he should expect the offspring of a marriage between such a subject and an ordinary mortal, to be normal. But Jim was merely bewildered. “Are you hinting that Zalithea’s mother is three hundred years old?” he demanded, incredulously. “Is _this_ the skeleton in the cupboard?” His tone was sufficient for Barry. Jim would never understand. How could he be expected to understand? He was glad he had been no more definite; and he clutched at this straw gratefully. “So we were led to believe,” he replied. Jim’s stare became that of a man hypnotized; but finally: “Does your father believe this?” he asked. “And old Blackwell, and Danbazzar--do they believe it?” “Yes,” said Barry. “_You_ would have believed it if you had been there.” But he knew, now, that he could look for guidance to no man. He and those others who had entered the tomb of She Who Sleeps had entered a world controlled by laws other than those known to the rest of mankind. CHAPTER XXVIII. A DOOR CLOSES Barry returned home comparatively early. Neither Jim’s airy philosophy nor his more serious sympathy, which was not without a salting of worldly wisdom, had lifted the cloud of despondency that had settled upon him. He felt utterly alone. Never, in the loneliest hours he had known in the desert, had he experienced anything quite like his mood of to-night. He had fallen in love with a shadow--a mirage; the shadow had materialized; and now, the substance was less real than the shadow.