When I got back, all the party were assembling for a late tea.  Coming fresh from the exhilaration of nature, it struck me as almost comic that we, who were nearing the end of so strange—­almost monstrous—­an undertaking, should be yet bound by the needs and habits of our lives.

All the men of the party were grave; the time of seclusion, even if it had given them rest, had also given opportunity for thought.  Margaret was bright, almost buoyant; but I missed about her something of her usual spontaneity.  Towards myself there was a shadowy air of reserve, which brought back something of my suspicion.  When tea was over, she went out of the room; but returned in a minute with the roll of drawing which she had taken with her earlier in the day.  Coming close to Mr. Trelawny, she said: 

“Father, I have been carefully considering what you said today about the hidden meaning of those suns and hearts and ‘Ka’s’, and I have been examining the drawings again.”

“And with what result, my child?” asked Mr. Trelawny eagerly.

“There is another reading possible!”

“And that?” His voice was now tremulous with anxiety.  Margaret spoke with a strange ring in her voice; a ring that cannot be, unless there is the consciousness of truth behind it: 

“It means that at the sunset the ‘Ka’ is to enter the ‘Ab’; and it is only at the sunrise that it will leave it!”

“Go on!” said her father hoarsely.

“It means that for this night the Queen’s Double, which is otherwise free, will remain in her heart, which is mortal and cannot leave its prison-place in the mummy-shrouding.  It means that when the sun has dropped into the sea, Queen Tera will cease to exist as a conscious power, till sunrise; unless the Great Experiment can recall her to waking life.  It means that there will be nothing whatever for you or others to fear from her in such way as we have all cause to remember.  Whatever change may come from the working of the Great Experiment, there can come none from the poor, helpless, dead woman who has waited all those centuries for this night; who has given up to the coming hour all the freedom of eternity, won in the old way, in hope of a new life in a new world such as she longed for . . . !” She stopped suddenly.  As she had gone on speaking there had come with her words a strange pathetic, almost pleading, tone which touched me to the quick.  As she stopped, I could see, before she turned away her head, that her eyes were full of tears.

For once the heart of her father did not respond to her feeling.  He looked exultant, but with a grim masterfulness which reminded me of the set look of his stern face as he had lain in the trance.  He did not offer any consolation to his daughter in her sympathetic pain.  He only said: 

“We may test the accuracy of your surmise, and of her feeling, when the time comes!” Having said so, he went up the stone stairway and into his own room.  Margaret’s face had a troubled look as she gazed after him.