"I am not insane," the scientist declared, as if answering an unspoken question. "Believe me, my boy, I am not."
"Go on."
"That mirror which Adrian Vance sent to my daughter actually is a crude time machine. A device for transporting a human soul to another period. Who devised it I cannot say. I believe it is old, and that Vance came upon it only by chance."
"But it isn't a machine. It's just a mirror—"
"Yet it is the gate through which a mind may be reflected into past or future. All that is needed is a focal point. A person to receive that mind. In this case, Adrian Vance made the focal point one of my ancestors, the first Elaine Duchard."
"The first Elaine Duchard!"
"Yes. She was the woman in the picture. And the woman whose image we now find imprinted in that devil's mirror."
"But how—"
"You remember how Adrian Vance swore vengeance when Elaine refused to marry him." The aged savant's voice choked with anger. "This must be what he planned. He bought the picture Gustav Jerbette painted of my ancestor. Then, by some process, imprinted her portrait in the center of this mirror, whose secret he somehow discovered. Apparently the picture does not show except at a certain angle. Perhaps only my daughter's coloring or facial configuration would ordinarily bring it out." He shrugged. "That I do not know."
Mark nodded slowly. He was breathing hard, his eyes dark with anger.