"That will do, I think. There only remains for us to steal upon him now and take him by surprise. Serve me well in this, Ptahmes, and I shall treble your reward."
"The man is of iron strength, master," answered the Arab's voice. "It is true that we are two toone and he is unsuspicious, but I should like well to have a knife."
"Nonsense," retorted Belleville. "I cannot make steel invisible. We must needs trust to the sandbags. Now lead on to the lady's room and take care from this moment that you make no sound."
On this I left the doorway and, slipping into the opposite corner, pressed flat against the wall. Presently the door creaked open and I heard the noise of breathing. I followed it as gently as a shadow, halting sharply when I could not hear it or it grew too near. I was weaponless—for I had left Belleville's revolver in the laboratory ere for the first time leaving it. But still, I dared not arm myself, for to have done so would have given my adversaries, sooner or later, a certain clue to my position; and my only hope of worsting them now consisted in preserving my absolute invisibility and at the same time knowing where, in the general sense, they were. My first great difficulty arose in the passage of the outer door. I dared not slip out with them, and since they locked it after them, I was forced to wait some time before I deemed it safe to open it again. Thus, when I reached the outer passage there was absolutely nothing left to guide my steps. However, I hurried to the arch and thence looked forth along the bifurcated corridor. Seeing and hearing nothing, I sank to the floor, and like an Indian pressed my ear againstthe boards. One far-off panel a little later creaked distinctly. Wood, though carpeted, is a fine sound conductor. This gave me the direction. Hot foot I followed it. But soon I came to a corner and beyond a short, wide cul-de-sac, with three closed doors. Here I stopped with straining ears and listened with a beating heart and bated breath. The conspirators were there, beyond the scope of doubt; and presently I knew the door they wished to pass. I saw the handle turn and heard a sigh. "Locked," murmured a voice in English—then in Arabic it breathed. "Keep closely by me, Ptahmes, hold my coat!" Three sharp raps followed on the panels. A voice that thrilled me, asked within the room, "Who is there?"
A voice, the cleverly twisted voice of Belleville, answered in a sharp falsetto from without, "It is I, my dear young lady, Sir Philip Lang."
The door was immediately opened and I saw the sad face of my sweetheart.
"Sir Philip!" she cried—then, seeing no one, she stopped, dismayed. Of a sudden she uttered a shriek and fell back into the room, back, back, clasping her hands to her neck and struggling to cry out. I guessed the reason instantly—Belleville had seized her by the throat. I sprang to her assistance, but paused again—by a miracle, in time—just across the threshold. Miss Ottley—I shall not, cannot call her Mrs. Belleville, though, indeed, she was—went spinning across the room,free, I saw. I slipped along the wall beside the lintel and waited, holding breath. What next? The door slammed and the bolt shot in answer to my question. Then came a long silence. Miss Ottley stood beside the farthest wall, supporting herself on the back of a saddle-bag chair, a picture of horror and fear personified. I would have given all the world for liberty to soothe her fears, to take her in my arms and comfort her. But it was not to be. Everything depended on my cunning and my silence. Tearing my glances from her ashen face, I looked around the room. It was her bedroom. The bed occupied one corner. Beside the canopy was an open window through which the light streamed in, striking full upon the door. Against another wall stood a Duchesse toilet table and a huge bemirrored clothes chest of carven ivory and ebony. The floor was covered with a thick pile carpet of dark crimson hue. The window curtains were of purple velvet. The bed's canopy of crimson silk. The walls were painted black and gold. It was, indeed, a mourning chamber.
"Who is it—who is it?" gasped the white-faced, black-robed mourner. I glanced at her again and saw that one hand was pressed tightly to her side.
No answer coming, she repeated her demand with more composure. Then a curious thing happened. A board creaked, and looking swiftly at the floor, I saw the imprint of a foot marked in the pile.It vanished and the pile sprang up again resiliently, but, twenty inches farther onward towards the girl, a second sole-shaped hollow formed itself and there remained. An instant's flashing search disclosed three others. I now knew for certain the position of my enemies, and with a wild heart-throb of joy I nerved myself for action. The shape of the footmarks showed me that both men faced the girl, and that they were standing about a yard apart. With two noiseless strides, I stepped behind the rearmost. Then I stooped and seized a pair of hard, lean thighs and heaved a body up and sent it hurling through the air above the second set of footprints. "I've got you again, you dog!" I cried; then stepped back swift and noiseless to my former place. The trick was perfectly successful. Silent, save for their heavy breathing and the trembling of their feet, the rascals writhed and stamped about the room, locked, doubtless, in a close embrace, although I could not see them. As for me, I slipped presently to a chair, caught it up, and guided by a sound, I brought it crashing down upon the head of one of them. There followed a heavy groan, then a dagger blade flashed out of nothingness and once, twice, thrice, it rose and fell. Murder was being done before my eyes, but I had only half a mind to stay it, and indeed, before I could the knife had vanished into mist again, and all to be seen was a dark flow of scarlet fluid that welled in air and sank upon the carpet.I waited spellbound. Which was alive—which was dead?
Belleville's voice put the question at rest suddenly. "Well done, Ptahmes," he gasped in Arabic. "He had me throttled when you struck. You shall have fifty pounds for this day's work."
"Thanks, good master." I returned and edged towards his voice. But at that moment Miss Ottley fell in a swoon, and death could hardly have availed to keep me from her side. With a bound I was across the room, and in another second she was in my arms.
Belleville must have seen, but thinking me the Arab, instead of chiding, he commended me. "Carry her to the laboratory," he commanded. "I'll follow with this carrion. We must dispose of it. Nay, wait. I'll go first. Damn him, how he bleeds!" he added in English. Then a little later, "He is wonderfully light for so tall and strong a man."
By then he must have had the Arab's body in his arms. I heard heavy footfalls stamping to the door. Carrying my burden, I followed them. The door opened and we both passed out. I hated the thought of taking my sweetheart to that room of horror, but I could not bear to leave her where she had been so terrified, to recover by herself. And in the next place I did not dare to let Belleville even for a moment out of my reach. He would soon be bound to discover his mistake and then the fight would be renewed with the advantage all onhis side, since he was armed with a weapon, which, it was evident, he could conceal till the time came for using it. Prudence demanded that I should seize and disarm Belleville before his suspicions became excited. Prudence also demanded that I should leave my sweetheart somewhere on the journey. But I could not bring myself to do the latter, her face so near to mine, her breath upon my lips. That is why I went to the laboratory, and why I took her with me.
Belleville's first act, after tossing the Arab's corpse upon the floor and bolting the laboratory door, was to rush over to the couch and remove therefrom the mummy of Ptahmes. This he placed with careful haste upon a marble slab, and he commanded me, in Arabic, meanwhile, to carry the lady to the couch. I obeyed him in silence. He then ordered me to take up the body of the Englishman, Pinsent, and bring it to the sarcophagus. This gave me an opportunity to examine the Arab. I did so, and found him quite dead. Belleville's dagger had twice pierced his heart. I then raised the corpse and carried it to the great lead coffin. "What next, master?" I asked in guttural Arabic.
Belleville's voice answered from behind me. "Lift the carrion up! That is well. Now let it slip into the bath! Gently, Ptahmes, gently—or the stuff will splash. Here—I will help you."
"Where?" I demanded. I was trying to locate him.
"Wait," he replied—then "Here!" His voice sounded from across the sarcophagus.
A second later his hand brushed one of mine and passed. "I'll take the shoulders," he said. "You take the feet! Be careful, man—gently, gently!"
It was maddening to be so near and yet so far. But there was nothing for it except to follow his directions. I, therefore, grasped the corpse firmly by the ankles, when the greater weight of it had been transferred, and then I watched the great blood clot upon its chest—the only visible sign of its existence—sink down, down to the liquid contents of the coffin. Soon it rested there like a crimson lily on the surface of a pond. I let my fingers loose their hold and the unseen limbs of the corpse subsided on the liquid with an oily swish. The whole corpse seemed to be floating. Belleville realised this as soon as I. "Wait here!" he said to me—then added in English, speaking to himself, "Where the deuce did I put that glass rod? Ah! I remember." Then I heard the thud of his retreating steps, and a little later I saw waveringly approaching me from across the room, apparently of its own volition, a long, glass, solid bar, about four feet long and an inch thick. I was overjoyed at the sight, for my hands were free, Belleville could not see me, and the glass rod informed me exactly of his whereabouts. Quick as thought, I slipped around the sarcophagus and making a little detour, got behind the murderer. He went straight to the coffin and plunged the rod within it. Doubtless he was using it to submerge the corpse. I heard ahissing, bubbling sound, and Belleville saying, "Watch me closely, Ptahmes—for this is what you must do."
I crept upon him until I could hear his breathing quite distinctly, although he was not greatly exerting himself. Then came the time to act. "My God!" he suddenly exclaimed—"not Pinsent—Ptahmes—what's this?"
The glass rod was still. It stood bolt upright in the sarcophagus, and so rigidly motionless that I guessed Belleville's weight was leaning on it. I gave a swift glance into the coffin and almost shrieked with surprise. The liquid had made the dead Arab visible again, and his death-mask grinned up at us with a fixed and blood-curdling stare. On instant I opened my arms wide and threw them round my unseen enemy. He uttered a howl of rage and terror and turned within my grasp to fight me, biting and clawing like a savage beast. But very soon I mastered him. Disregarding his animal-like efforts, I seized him by the throat and beat his skull upon the edge of the sarcophagus until he had quite ceased to struggle. Then, anxious, of all things, to make sure of him by seeing him, I heaved him up and allowed him to slide headforemost down into the bath beside the Arab he had murdered in mistake for me. I reasoned that since the liquid there had made the Arab visible, it should produce a like effect on Belleville. But I was utterly unprepared for the result. The stuff musthave been an acid of tremendous power. It awakened the senseless wretch to almost instant tortured consciousness. A series of dreadful shrieks filled the room with strange detonating echoes. Belleville was no sooner in the coffin than out of it and visible in part. His face and hands were plainly to be seen. They came out white and dripping wet, but a few seconds' contact with the air turned them red as blood. I seized the glass rod to defend myself, expecting an attack. But there was no need to use it. The shrieking wretch staggered down the room to the first dispensing cabinet. He tore the door open and clutched at a big phial, the contents of which he poured upon his hands and splashed upon his face, wailing all the while like a lost soul in the depths of Hell. Happily he did not keep this up for long. The drug that he applied to his hurts, whatever it was, must have salved them, for in a moment or two his heart-rending outcries subsided to a deep, low sobbing. Even that, however, was more than I could stand. I wanted Belleville dead, but I could not endure the sight and sound of his agony—agony that I, unwittingly, had caused.
"Belleville," I called out, "can I help you?"
He gasped and caught his breath, turning his face towards me. To my surprise it was no longer scarlet. It had caught the hue of leather, and the eyes were mantling purple at the whites.
"I did not know the stuff was acid," Icontinued. "If there is anything I can do to soothe your suffering, I shall and gladly."
"You dog!" said he. "You've ruined me and now you are gloating over your handiwork."
With that, he put his hand in his bosom and began to steal in my direction. I remembered his concealed dagger and called out, "Be warned, Belleville—I can see you. Your dagger will not help you."
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" he groaned, and stopped short.
"Hugh Pinsent's voice—oh, Heaven!" cried Miss Ottley—behind me. She had awakened from her swoon.
I swung on heel and watched her rise. "Hugh!" she sighed. "Hugh—where are you, dear?" Then she saw Belleville, and the hideous apparition he presented, a black pain-tortured face hovering in mid-air, with two dark, ghostly hands outstretched before it, froze her blood. Mercifully, she swooned again and fell back senseless on the lounge. Belleville recommenced his moaning, and began walking up and down wringing his hands. I stood silent, lost in thought and wondering what I ought to do. Belleville told me. He stopped on a sudden and called my name twice, "Pinsent, Pinsent."
A black pain-tortured face hovering in mid-air
"Here!" said I.
"I am at your mercy now," he muttered, in a broken voice. "I'm blind."
"What!" I cried.
"Ay," said he, "and my facial extremities are dying fast—pah! my nose is already dead; look." He put up one hand to his face and before my eyes broke off his nose and tossed it on the floor. It snapped like a piece of tinder, leaving a black, ugly stump.
Next he plucked the dagger from his breast—or rather, from where his bosom seemed to be—and cast it on the floor. I was speechless with horror and surprise.
"Now that you have naught to fear from me," he groaned, "if you have a heart in your breast you will help to end my pain."
"Anything, anything—only tell me how!" I cried, advancing towards him as I spoke. But hearing me approaching, he shouted out for me to stop. "Don't come near me!" he wailed. "Don't touch me—or I shall try to murder you—I'll not be able to prevent myself—and I want to undo some of the ill I've done before I die."
I halted. "But what then shall I do?" I asked.
"Light the asbestos fire. You'll find matches in the table drawer. I am perishing of cold, that is the only thing that will soothe the anguish I am going through. Oh! be quick, be quick!"
I flew to obey him, and in a moment I had set the stove ablaze. Belleville found his way to it as if by instinct, and stooping down, he pressed his awful-looking face against the bars, groaning ina way that made my very flesh creep. "Yes—yes, I'm blind," he kept muttering, between his moans. "And very soon I shall be dead. I must atone. I must atone."
"Belleville," I said at last—I forced myself to say it, for his face had grown ink-black, "are you not wasting precious time? Is there not something I can get to counteract the acid? It appears to——"
"Hush!" he interrupted. "There is nothing. It is eating into my brain. Besides, I am blind and do not wish to live. But let me think. This pain—I cannot use my wits—it dazes me! Ah! now! I must. I must. How can I die with all—Pinsent! Pinsent!"
His voice was a piercing scream.
"Yes—yes," I answered. I was shaking like a reed.
"Is there not a big jar of yellow spirit near the coffin somewhere?"
"Yes."
"Then, for God's sake, lead me to it."
I caught him by the hand and guided him forthwith to the jar.
"Take out the stopper," he entreated. I did so and thereupon he plunged his hands into the vessel and began to lave his neck and face, sobbing raucously the while. The odour of the stuff, however, was so nauseous to me that I stepped back in order to escape it.
Belleville seemed to know at once. "Pinsent!" he cried, "where are you?"
"Here," said I.
"Go and wake her, my wife!" he muttered suddenly. "I have something to tell you both before I go. I am dying fast."
I hastened to do his bidding, but before I reached Miss Ottley's side I was arrested by a loud thudding crash. Turning swiftly, I saw that Belleville had overturned the jar. Its contents had already flooded the floor. He hovered over with a lighted vesta in one of his black hands.
"What are you doing?" I demanded.
He stooped floorwards with the match and instantly a mighty flame shot up that licked the very roof. "Revenge!" he shrieked. "Revenge! I've fooled you, Pinsent, fooled you. Now we all shall die together. Look!" With that, he steeped both hands in the burning fluid and, flitting like a salamander through the flames, he made for the sarcophagus. I could not have stayed him had I wished, for there was a sea of fire between us. But in good truth I was too dazed for the while, at least, to move a muscle. Reaching the great lead tomb, the dreadful flaming object that had once been Belleville thrust his lambent hands into the coffin. There followed an explosion of appalling fury. A mass of brilliant, white, combustible shot up with a mighty roar from the sarcophagus to the ceiling. It pierced the padded lining like a thunderbolt andflashed into the room above. But on its impact with the ceiling it also splashed a rain of fire about the great laboratory. In two seconds the whole place ran with flames. By a miracle I was not touched. But it was not so with Miss Ottley. Her skirt was ablaze. I rushed forward and tore the thing off in strips before it burnt her—then seizing her in my arms, I made like a madman to the door. A hideous burning object lay before it shrieking sulphurous curses. It was Belleville. But he had come to the end of his strength and he could not stay me. The catch yielded to my hand and I dashed into the passage half blinded with fire and smoke, but safe. I did not rest until I had reached the staircase. Miss Ottley was then awake. She struggled in my arms, so I set her down and faced her. But she did not see me. Her dress was smouldering in places. She seemed utterly bewildered. A woman ran up to her and began to put out the burning patches with her hands. The house was in an uproar. Servants—they were all either Arabs or Nubians—ran hither and thither shouting and screaming in a panic. The woman, evidently a nurse, who attended to Miss Ottley, was the only white person to be seen. She was evidently terrified, but she did not lose her head. She kept asking Miss Ottley in French to explain what had happened. Nobody seemed aware that the house was on fire. They had all been merely alarmed by the noises they had heard. Miss Ottley in the middleof it all began to weep. She was thoroughly upset and ill, and I perceived at once that she was on the verge of a mental and physical collapse. In the circumstances, I judged it best to remain a silent onlooker of events and not to take any action unless there arose a real necessity. It was plain that I was still invisible. And as for the house being on fire, I deemed it utterly desirable that it should burn down to the last shaving and thus fittingly entomb in its destruction the ghastly tragedy of the laboratory. The issue tallied largely with my wishes. The fire was seen first from the street. There followed a veritable pandemonium. The coloured servants fled like cowards for their lives, and in an incredibly short space of time the house was in the hands of firemen and police. Miss Ottley was taken by the nurse out into the street and there questioned by a sergeant. But she was quite unable to answer his insistent queries satisfactorily. All she could say was that she had been a long time ill. She had fainted in her room that afternoon, and Dr. Belleville or someone had carried her to the laboratory. When she woke up she had heard a frightful noise. She supposed it was one of the Doctor's experiments. She thought she had fainted again, but she remembered nothing more until she found herself with her dress on fire at the foot of the staircase. She could not explain how she got there. The sergeant was civil enough to her, but the fool, in his fussy officiousness, overlookedher weak condition, and the girl broke down and utterly collapsed before he realised his quite unnecessary cruelty. The worst of it was that the French nurse had disappeared during the colloquy. There was, therefore, no woman at hand to attend to my poor sweetheart. Fortunately, however, a physician appeared opportunely on the scene, and at his direction she was immediately conveyed to a hospital. After she had gone, I did not tarry very long. Choosing a place where the cordoned crowd was thinnest, I slipped back through the park railings, over which I climbed and dropped into the park, feeling the weight of my invisibility acutely. From this vantage point I watched the conflagration for a while. The house was manifestly doomed. Indeed, the efforts of the firemen were entirely directed to save adjoining buildings. A hundred jets of water played upon the walls of these in thin continuous streams. Men about me were talking the matter over as if it personally appealed to them. They mostly viewed it with a sort of half-secret satisfaction. The misfortunes of millionaires do not excite much sympathy in the hearts of the mob.
One man glibly quoted, "Lay not up unto yourselves treasures in this world!" on the occasion of a grimy fireman bringing out a magnificent but half-destroyed silver-framed canvas of Velasquez. But the crowd cheered the fireman for his pluck all the same. At length I realised that I was verytired, and hungry, too, so I slunk off and made my way to Dixon Hubbard's rooms. They were locked, of course, and I had not the key. I had left it with the porter of the building. But I could not go to him and ask him to give it up to an apparently fleshless voice. Wondering what to do, I crept into the passage, sat down in a corner underneath the stairs and waited for an inspiration. Waiting there, I fell asleep.
I awoke in the grey light of dawn, stiff with cold and aching in every limb. Arising, I left my hiding-place and went into the vestibule. The night porter sat on a stool in his little office toasting his toes before the stove and reading one of the morning papers. I stepped up to the door at once. Hearing my footsteps, he looked around. "Good-morning, Michael," I said, as well as my chattering teeth would let me. "Do you want all that fire?" I had forgotten that I was completely invisible. The fellow sprang to his feet with a start and stared at me aghast. "What's the matter with you?" I demanded, testily.
"'Ere—you keep off. I've done nothing to 'arm you!" he whined, and he backed before my advance against the wall of the office, the very picture of abject terror. His appearance recalled me to my senses. But it was too late to cry over spilt milk. I thought it better to make a confidant of the man if he would let me.
"Don't be frightened, Michael; there is no need. I'm not a ghost, feel my hands!" I said.
But panic seized the fellow. He uttered a wildshriek and fled for his life into the passage. I could hardly help laughing, but I saw a chance in the contretemps to end my immediate difficulty—so I went straight to the desk, and fortunately found it open. In Hubbard's pigeon-hole was the key I wanted. I took it out, caught up aTimesand hurried up the stairs. In another moment I was safe in Hubbard's room with the door locked against intrusion. My first care was to set the asbestos ablaze and warm myself. Then I opened the paper and found at once the news I sought under great cross headlines in the main sheet. Miss Ottley's house had been completely gutted by fire. Some of the walls still stood, but with the exception of a few pictures, the whole of the valuable art furniture and the late Sir Robert Ottley's splendid collection of Egyptian coins, manuscripts and curios had been destroyed. It was supposed that Dr. Belleville had perished in the flames, but no sign of his remains had been discovered. The fire, as far as it was possible to ascertain, had arisen from an accident due to the unsuccessful conduct of a chemical experiment. It was well known in scientific circles, said the journal, that the Doctor had been engaged in a series of experiments, the object of which had been kept a close secret, but a city firm of manufacturing chemists had recently supplied him with large quantities of a certain highly inflammable liquid compound possessing radio activities which had been prepared atenormous cost, under his directions. The manager of the firm, on being interviewed, stated that in his opinion, this compound was principally responsible for the tragic disaster. There was always a danger in handling it of spontaneous combustion, it appeared, and if it once took fire, by no means could it be extinguished except by the shutting off of all supplies of oxygen. Failing this, it would burn to the last with the most explosive energy. According to Miss Ottley's statement, when first interrogated by an officer from Scotland Yard, she had been in the laboratory with Dr. Belleville at the time of the catastrophe. She had lately been very ill and it seems she had fainted. It was extremely probable that the Doctor, in his anxiety to revive her, had neglected his usual caution and had done some careless thing which had led to his destruction. Probably he had been killed outright by the first explosion. It was, however, a matter of general relief that Miss Ottley had managed to escape, and that there had been no further sacrifice of life. Everyone would sympathise with the unfortunate young lady in her sad position. Only a few weeks ago the gallant young officer to whom she had been engaged to be married, had come to an untimely end in a railway accident on the very eve of his wedding day. Then, a little later, the dark angel had deprived her of a loving and beloved father, the great millionaire archæologist, whose recent operations on 'Change had startled theworld, and made of him the richest man in the United Kingdom. And now, she had lost by death the kind and learned guardian to whom her late father had entrusted her future and the management of her enormous fortune. Nobody would be surprised to learn that this great accumulation of calamities had reduced the fate-stricken young lady to a state of utter physical prostration. She had been taken yesterday evening, after her rescue from the burning mansion, to the Albert Hospital, but she had subsequently been removed to the Walsingham Hotel, where the management had placed a suite of rooms at her disposal. She was there being treated under the care of Drs. Fiaschi and Mason, the well-known heart and nerve specialists. These gentlemen express themselves hopeful of her ultimate recovery, but they do not conceal the fact that she is at present in a very low condition, and it is significant that the road in front of the hotel was, in the small hours of the morning, thickly overspread with tan.
This last paragraph, as may easily be conceived, filled me with anxiety. I resolved to go at once to the Walsingham Hotel and find out exactly how she was for myself. But, fortunately, in moving towards the door to put my purpose into execution, I had to pass the mirror-backed door of a clothes press. I did not pass it then. I stopped, spellbound. I was no longer invisible. That is to say, my face and hands were not—although my bodywas. The mirror showed me a head floating apparently in mid-air and a pair of hands hanging mysteriously from nothing. My eyes were curiously goggled with a thin, gelatinous-like film, with a glassy surface that was bound about my head. This I tore off forthwith and curiously examined. It was actually composed of gelatine. Tossing it aside, I ran my fingers over my clothing and discovered, from the sense of touch, that I was clad to the neck in one unbroken combination suit of rubber overalls, which included footgear. I soon made out the secret of its fastening, and tearing it open, I stepped forth into the light of day and perfect visibility, to find that I still had on all the clothes I had worn when Dr. Belleville trapped me, except my boots. The overalls, however, remained visible, or rather partially so, for their inner surface viewed from the opening was discernible. I put them carefully aside for future investigation and proceeded to make a toilet. My first care was a hot bath. The hall porter, whom I had frightened so desperately a little while before, answered my ring. He was astounded to see me, but I did not choose to make him any explanations, and he was too overcome to ask me for any. A little later I was luxuriating in a steaming bath, which removed the last vestige of my Parisian disguise. Most of the paint, however, had worn off before, so it was the easier to become myself again. But not quite my old, familiar self. My experienceshad permanently aged me. There were lines upon my face that I was stranger to, and with which I made reluctant acquaintance. And my hair was liberally streaked with grey. I had put on ten years, at least. I felt old, too, that was the worst of it—old, ill and thick-blooded and infinitely world-weary. I felt a hunger for the desert and big open spaces; a need to hasten from the grinding, selfish life of cities, with their secret crimes and gilded vices and dull-herded groping after sordid happiness. But I did not wish to go alone. At a little after eight o'clock I entered the Walsingham and demanded to see Miss Ottley's head nurse. She was at breakfast, but the waiter told me that Miss Ottley had spent a good night and was still asleep, so I was content to wait. Afterwards, I had to lie to the nurse in order to be permitted to see the invalid. I told her that I was Miss Ottley's nearest living relative, and I suppressed the fact of my medical qualifications. The woman, otherwise, would have referred me to the physicians, who had employed her, and I should have been put off for hours. As it was, it required all my powers of persuasion to induce her to admit me to the sick room. But I prevailed on her at last, with a show of stern authority, and a curt intimation that her position depended on my complaisance. The falsehood is not one that I feel any shame at, for I knew what an effect my appearance would make in the patient, and I was determined, at allcosts, to be with her at the moment of her waking. I shall pass over the preliminary period that I spent beside her bed. It is too full of sorrow to recall with anything but misery. The poor girl was as frail and wan as any spirit. They had cut off all her glorious hair, and the hand I kissed, which lay so weakly on the coverlid, was whiter than a snowflake, and almost as destitute of vigour. She slept as gently as a weary babe, and it was hard at first to believe thoroughly she lived. But at length she sighed and her great eyes slowly opened and looked up questioningly into mine. She thought that she was dead and that my ghost had sought her out. "Hugh!" she whispered, and a soft smile lighted her face and made it infinitely lovely, though so wan. "I knew that I should find you, dear," she sighed. "And so I could not help but pray to die. Will God punish us for that?"
But I kissed her on the lips—the first long kiss of love that I had known—or she—and she came back warm with quickened hope and will to live within my arms. And all was well with us.
There is little more to tell. As soon as she was strong again we married quietly, and now we live in a place where crowded cities are unknown—far from old England's shores. I never again saw Belleville's Arab servant, who so marvellously resembled the old High Priest of Amen-Ra; nor his companion, the Nubian, Uromi. They disappeared after the fire, and not all the efforts of the policecould trace their hiding-place. The invisible suit of overalls is still in my possession—but it had lost its old mysterious properties, and although I expended months of patient labour to explore its secret, it was all in vain. To this day I cannot tell who released me from the chair in which Belleville had bound me in the murderer's laboratory. And I am still unable to explain the many other little mysteries that so involved us in the period of our contention with the wretch, the fatal termination of whose wicked scheming I have set forth in these pages. The greater part of Sir Robert Ottley's fortune has been given to the poor. The rest we settled on my wife's sole living blood relation, the old bed-ridden aunt, whom she has never seen. We both felt that we should be doing well to dispose of riches that—to an extent, at least—must have been acquired by arts of sinister significance. Still, we have never wanted, and we are not likely to. My profession yields us a comfortable living in these grand but sparsely settled wilds. And, although we sometimes think regretfully upon the delight we once experienced in searching out the lettered past of long-dead centuries, we have other interests now to fill our lives and banish vain regrets. We have our growing children to attend to and provide for. We are of real service to the people who surround us, for my wife is the schoolmistress of the district, and I am the only surgeonin a radius of one hundred miles. Then, we have our books and our long evenings together in the splendid twilight of the endless plains. We have given up the past for the future. And we are happy in our labour and our love.
THE END