At last they reached the table. How he wished it was six o'clock, that he might sit at a very different table, and in very different company! He should then have that beautiful face to feast upon, not this collection of feeble old age and enthusiastic deposers of sacred beliefs. 'I am glad you are with me here to-day, Osborne. You have had a treat many men would come from Berlin to enjoy.' 'I fear I did not pay sufficient attention to the speaker. You know I am not scientific.' 'But do you not know the meaning of this discovery?' 'No.' 'You amaze me, Osborne.' They were now standing at the table in front of the bone and the mortar. 'You know,' he went on, 'the Chinese claim a hundred thousand years of history, and we have laughed at them.' 'And of course so has every sensible man. Man has not been more than six thousand years on earth. That is clear any way. We may adjust the day of creation to the epochs of forming the earth, but man cannot have been on earth seven thousand years ago.' 'And yet,' said Nevill, pointing with an amused smile at the bone first, and then at the mortar, 'there is not room for the shadow of a doubt that this bone and this vessel are between nine and ten thousand years old.' 'Come away,' cried Osborne impatiently. 'I cannot stay any longer. I loathe the place.' CHAPTER XII. AN IDLE EVENING AND NIGHT. At last they got out of that room into the street, and home to the private hotel. Here they found word awaiting for them that Miss Osborne would not appear until dinner-time, and that Miss Gordon was trying to get a little sleep. Upon hearing this the two men looked blank. There was, however, no appeal; so Osborne went to his room to write letters, and Nevill said he'd go and look up his Indian geography. Osborne was restless, unhappy. He did not know how to describe his condition to himself. There was a conflict in his mind, but he could not analyse it so as to determine what were the contending forces. That girl had sat up all last night, she had something of moment to tell him, she was resting, and he could not see her, and he wanted to see her. He felt cold and wretched and forlorn without her. He should not be able to live a fortnight without seeing her. If she went away now he should follow her, even if she bade him not. He should follow her afar off. He should go to the towns she went to, and walk about the streets all day in the hope of seeing her now and then. He should not intrude upon her, but when he had found out where she stayed, he should walk up and down till well into the night, watching over her. Who could tell but that some great emergency might arise, in which he, armed by love with the strength of ten, might save her! The maddest flames that ever burned could not keep him back from the door behind which she was threatened.