"Stop!" he cried; "for his sake stop, or you will kill him!" They dragged the inanimate form to the window and bathed the face. A low moan escaped the young man, and then a gleam of intelligence came into his eyes. He tried to speak, but without success; an expression of surprise and distress came upon his face as he rose to his feet. For a moment he stood gasping, but presently his breath came normally. "Temporary aphasia," he said, in a low tone. Going to the easel he drew rapidly the picture of a woman kneeling above the prostrate form of another, and stood contemplating it in silence. Edward and Virdow came to his side, the latter pale with excitement. Gerald did not notice them. Only the back of the kneeling woman was shown, but the face of the other was distinct, calm and beautiful. It was the girl in the small picture. "That face--that face," he whispered. "Alas! I see it only as my ancestors saw it." He resumed his lounge dejectedly. "You have seen it before, then?" said Virdow, earnestly. "Before! In my dreams from childhood! It is a face associated with me always. In the night, when the wind blows, I hear a voice calling Gerald, and this vision comes. Shall I tell you a secret--" His voice had become lower and now was inaudible. Placing his hand upon the white wrist, Virdow said: "He sleeps; it is well. Come away, my young friend; I have learned much, but the experience might have been dearly bought. Sometime I will explain." Noiselessly they withdrew to Edward's room. Edward was depressed. "You have gained, but not I," he said. "The back of the kneeling woman was toward him." "Wait," said Virdow; "all things cannot be learned in a night. We do not know who witnessed that scene." CHAPTER XXVIII. THE THREE PICTURES. Virdow had arisen and been to town when Edward made his appearance late in the morning. After tossing on his pillow all night, at daylight he had fallen into a long, dreamless sleep. Gerald was looking on, and the professor was arranging an experimental apparatus of some kind. He had suspended a metal drum from the arch of the glass-room by steel wires, and over the upper end of the drum had drawn tightly a sheet of rubber obtained from a toy balloon manufacturer. In the base of this drum he inserted a hollow stem of tin, one end of which was flared like a trumpet. The whole machine when completed presented the appearance of a gigantic pipe; the mouthpiece enlarged. When Edward came in the German was spreading upon the rubber surface of the drum an almost impalpable powder, taken from one of the iron nodules which lay about on the surrounding hills and slightly moistened.