We walked on slowly, scarcely disturbing the silence with our soft footfalls, through the wide doorway into the second room. The vague shapes of mummy-cases standing erect in the wall-cases, loomed out dim and gigantic, silent watchers keeping their vigil with the memories of untold centuries locked in their shadowy breasts. They were an awesome company. Reverend survivors from a vanished world, they looked out from the gloom of their abiding-place, but with no shade of menace or of malice in their silent presence; rather with a solemn benison on the fleeting creatures of to-day.
Half-way along the room a ghostly figure, somewhat aloof from its companions, showed a dim, pallid blotch where its face would have been. With one accord we halted before it.
"Do you know who this is, Ruth?" I asked.
"Of course I do," she answered. "It is Artemidorus."
We stood, hand in hand, facing the mummy, letting our memories fill in the vague silhouette with its well-remembered details. Presently I drew her nearer to me and whispered:
"Ruth! do you remember when we last stood here?"
"As if I could ever forget!" she answered passionately. "Oh, Paul!
The sorrow of it! The misery! How it wrung my heart to tell you!
Were you very unhappy when I left you?"
"Unhappy! I never knew, until then, what real heart-breaking sorrow was. It seemed as if the light had gone out of my life for ever. But there was just one little spot of brightness left."
"What was that?"
"You made me a promise, dear—a solemn promise; and I felt—at least I hoped—that the day would come, if I only waited patiently, when you would be able to redeem it."