“Three months will soon pass,” Burton replied.  “Until that time is up, I could not part with them.”

“But you can’t imagine,” the professor pleaded, “how marvelously interesting this is to me.  Remember that I have spent all my life digging about among the archives and the literature and the superstitions of these pre-Egyptian peoples.  You are the first man in the world, outside a little circle of fellow-workers, to speak to me of this perfect food.  Your story as to how it came into your hands is the most amazing romance I have ever heard.  It confirms many of my theories.  It is wonderful.  Do you realize what has happened?  You, sir, you in your insignificant person,” the professor continued, shaking his finger at his visitor, “have tasted the result of thousands of years of unceasing study.  Wise men in their cells, before Athens was built, before the Pyramids were conceived, were thinking out this matter in strange parts of Egypt, in forgotten parts of Syria and Asia.  For generations their dream has been looked upon as a thing elusive as the philosopher’s stone, the transmutation of metals—­any of these unsolved problems.  For five hundred years—­since the days of a Russian scientist who lived on the Black Sea, but whose name, for the moment, I have forgotten—­the whole subject has lain dead.  It is indeed true that the fairy tales of one generation become the science of the next.  Our own learned men have been blind.  The whole chain of reasoning is so clear.  Every article of human food contains its separate particles, affecting the moral as well as the physical system.  Why should it have been deemed necromancy to endeavor to combine these parts, to evolve by careful elimination and change the perfect food?  In the house, young man, which you have told me of, there died the hero of the greatest discovery which has ever been made since the world began to spin upon its orbit.”

“Will Miss Edith be back to-morrow?” Burton asked.

The professor stared at him.

“Miss Edith?” he repeated.  “Oh! my daughter?  Is she not in?”

“She is away for two days, your servant told me,” Burton replied.

“Perhaps so—­perhaps so,” the professor agreed.  “She has gone to her aunt’s, very likely, in Chelsea.  My sister has a house there in Bromsgrove Terrace.”

Burton rose to his feet.  He held out his hand for the manuscript.

“I am exceedingly obliged to you,” he said.  “Now I must go.”

The professor gripped the manuscript in his hand.  He was no longer a harmless and benevolent old gentleman.  He was like a wild animal about to be robbed of its prey.

“No,” he cried.  “You must not take these away.  You must not think of it.  They are of no use to you.  Leave me the sheets, just as they are.  I will go further back.  There are several words at the meaning of which I have only guessed.  Leave them with me for a few days, and I will make you an exact translation.”