"And mark me, George," Morewood said, very gravely, "it was the same face, I have not the slightest doubt, that you and I beheld to-day appear before us, the same strange, wonderfully beautiful face that I hold now in my hand."
"By Jove!" ejaculated Dunbarton, alive at once to the arcane significance of the statement. "But you can't really believe——"
"I believe nothing that I have not seen," asseverated Morewood. "Nothing that you have not seen yourself. I, too, was incredulous at first; I laughed at the story of the photograph as the figment of a disordered brain; but it took possession of me, haunted me night and day, until I determined to prove its wild impossibility to myself. I bought a camera, took it to the Museum, as I have told you, and came directly here with the result. You yourself developed the film; you saw the face appear; if you can suggest any other explanation of the mystery, in Heaven's name let us discuss it reasonably."
"Let me look at the glass film again," Dunbarton suggested, below his breath. He picked up the smoldering cigarette and, coming to his friend's side, looked long and gravely at the glass film. Both men were silent for a time, so silent that they could hear their own hearts beating.
"She is indeed beautiful," said the painter, finally. "To our eyes she seems about twenty years old, though Eastern women reach perfection early. That diadem upon her brow is, I think, the two-horned crown of Isis. The drapery falling down on either side is certainly Egyptian and probably of a period antedating the Pharaohs, but the type of feature is scarcely Oriental."
"Yet Cleopatra was a blonde," Morewood suggested.
"True," assented the other, "and possibly the race three thousand years ago differed materially from the degenerate Sphinx-like personalities of the hieroglyphics. We must get Biggins of the Smithsonian to give us his opinion."
"Never!" cried Morewood, thrusting the negative in his breast.
"But in the interest of science——" protested Dunbarton.