"Science?" Morewood returned scornfully; "what has science to do with this? What right have I to betray a lady's confidence?"
Dunbarton made a sign of impatience. "Your lady has been dead a matter of three thousand years or more," he remarked.
"That's not true!" the other contradicted, warmly. "I tell you, man, that woman is alive to-day. Don't ask me to explain the unexplainable. I simply know that she lives, as young and innocent as every feature of her face proclaims her. For years, for centuries, perhaps, she has been trying to make herself known to the stupid brutes who have been incapable of comprehending. But now, thank heaven, she has selected me to do her will—whatever it may be—and I shall consecrate my life to her!"
He grew very pale as he spoke, but there was a rapt joy in his face.
"See here, old man," Dunbarton remonstrated kindly, with a hand on his shoulder, "you're rather overwrought just now, and I don't blame you. But take a friend's advice, and don't get spoony on a girl so very much older than yourself. It never turns out well."
"That's my affair!" Morewood said, doggedly.
"Of course, of course!" Dunbarton assented. "She's awfully pretty, I admit, and no doubt well connected; but, even if we overlook her playful little way of killing people, think of the difficulties about meeting, and that sort of thing."
"I'm willing to leave it all to her," Morewood said. "A priestess of Amen Ra must have learned by this time every mystery of life and death, and I am confident that in the proper time and place I shall meet her face to face."
"Old chap," Dunbarton pronounced with conviction, "what you need is a good night's rest."