And as she thought that, she forgot for a moment all her fears and all her wonder, in a final realization of what all the poets had sung and all the scientists striven to destroy. Her blood thrilled and pulsed with the knowledge, but it did not thrill or pulse for the man whose revelations had confirmed her in it. The man whom she had promised to marry was the man who had confirmed her in the knowledge of the truth. And all he had said and done filled her with a strange joy such as she had never known before. At that moment Sir William came towards her. He had switched on the electric light, and the room was now brilliantly illuminated. In his hand he held a large oval thing of brass, bright and shining. At that moment, also, old Lady Poole woke up with a start. "Dear me," she said, "I must have taken forty winks. Well, I suppose, my dear children, that I have proved my absolute inability to be _de trop_! What are you doing, William?" "It's a little experiment," Sir William said, "one of my inventions, Lady Poole. Marjorie, I want you to take off your hat." Marjorie did so. With careful and loving hands the great man placed the metal helmet upon her head. The girl let him do so as if she were in a dream. Then Sir William pressed a button in the wall. In a few seconds there was an answering and sudden ring of an electric bell in the study. "Now, Marjorie!" Sir William said, "now, all I have told you is being actually proved." He looked at her face, which flowered beneath the grotesque and shining cap of metal. "Now, Marjorie, everything you are thinking is being definitely recorded in another place." For a moment or two the significance of his words did not penetrate to her mind. Then she realized them. Lady Poole and the scientist saw the rapt expression fade away like a lamp that is turned out. Horror flashed out upon it, horror and fear. Her hands went up to her head; she swept off the brilliant helmet and flung it with a crash upon the ground. Then she swayed for a moment and sank into a deep swoon. She had been thinking of Mr. Guy Rathbone, barrister-at-law, and what her thoughts were, who can say? CHAPTER IV THE SECOND LOVER ARRIVES On the evening of the day in which she had fainted, Marjorie Poole sat alone in the drawing-room of her mother's house in Curzon Street. It was a large, handsome place, furnished in the Empire style with mirrors framed in delicate white arabesques, and much gilding woven into the pattern. The carpet was a great purple expanse covered with laurel wreaths of darker purple. There was but little furniture in the big, beautiful place, but it was all airy, fantastic and perfect of its kind. There was a general air of repose, of size and comely proportion in this delightful room. Here, an old French clock clicked merrily, there were two or three inlaid cabinets, and upon the walls were a few copies of some of Watteau's delightful scenes in the old courtly gardens of Versailles.