His face darkened.
"And if you did not want harm to befall her, why did you let her reject me when I asked to marry her? I gave her her chance. When she didn't take it, what else could she expect but my revenge?"
"Go away. Please go away."
On the floor, Mark stirred uneasily. His brain was clear now, though his head throbbed like a jungle tom-tom under the beat of a mad witch doctor. Slowly, he tried his muscles. Tensed them. Relaxed them. Tested them for complete control.
Vance said:
"In case you still have any notions of rescuing your daughter from the far reaches of time, professor, forget them now. It's impossible to call a person back. In the first place, a time mirror would be needed—and the only one in existence, the one I bought from a French sorcerer who once studied under Eliphas Levi, now stands on that easel in the corner."
Sobs racked the other's frail form. He still leaned against the bench, his face buried in his hands.
But on the floor, Mark Carter's jaw grew hard. He readied himself for a savage leap.
"Furthermore," their captor went on, "your precious Elaine remembers nothing of her life in this century. For all practical purposes she has become the first Elaine Duchard. I know this, because I tried out the mirror by sending one of my clerks three months into the past. He was possessed by a strange amnesia that left his mind a perfect blank so far as what had happened in those three months was concerned!"