“She says it is right,” he said. “How should not Mentu be right? Perhaps Mentu is right, too, when he says that Denys is her brother? Yes; that is Margaret Bristow who sits here, though not Margaret Bristow now. Margaret----” Waghorn saw the name quite clearly, but yet he hesitated. It was not Gardner at all. Then it struck him for the first time that nothing was more likely than that Mrs. Gardner had adopted a pseudonym. He went on: “Margaret Forsyth is Denys’s sister. Margaret wants to know about Denys. Denys is coming. He will be here in a moment. He has spoken of his sister before. He did not call her Margaret. He called her Q--he called her Queenie. Will Queenie speak?” Waghorn felt the trembling of her hand; he heard her twice try to speak, but she was unable to control the trembling in her voice. “Can Denys speak to me?” she said in a whisper. “Can he really come here?” Up to this moment Waghorn had been enjoying himself immensely, for after the days in which he had been unable to get into touch with this rare and marvellous gifts of consciousness-reading, it was blissful to find his mastery again, and, besieged with the images which Margaret Forsyth’s contact revealed to him, he had been producing them in Mentu’s impressive voice, revelling in his restored powers. Her mind lay open to him like a book; he could read where he liked on pages familiar to her and on pages which had remained long unturned. But at this moment, as sudden as some qualm of sickness, he was aware of a startling change in the quality of his perceptions. Fresh knowledge of Denys Bristow came into his mind, but he felt that it was coming not from her, but from some other source. Some odd buzzing sang in his ears, as when an anæsthetic begins to take effect, and opening his eyes, he thought he saw a strange patch of light, inconsistent with the faint illumination of the red lamp, hovering over his breast. At the same moment he heard, though dimly, for his head was full of confused noise, the violent rapping of the electric hammer, and already only half conscious, felt an impotent irritation with his sister for employing these tricks. He struggled with the oncoming of the paralysis that was swiftly invading his mind and his physical being, but he struggled in vain, and next moment, overwhelmed with the onrush of a huge, enveloping blackness, he lost consciousness altogether. The trance that he had often simulated had invaded him, and he knew nothing more. * * * * *