The dead child!  Was it possible that the child was dead and was made alive again?  Whence then came the animating spirit—­the soul?  Logic was pointing the way to me now with a vengeance!

If the Egyptian belief was true for Egyptians, then the “Ka” of the dead Queen and her “Khu” could animate what she might choose.  In such case Margaret would not be an individual at all, but simply a phase of Queen Tera herself; an astral body obedient to her will!

Here I revolted against logic.  Every fibre of my being resented such a conclusion.  How could I believe that there was no Margaret at all; but just an animated image, used by the Double of a woman of forty centuries ago to its own ends . . . !  Somehow, the outlook was brighter to me now, despite the new doubts.

At least I had Margaret!

Back swung the logical pendulum again.  The child then was not dead.  If so, had the Sorceress had anything to do with her birth at all?  It was evident—­so I took it again from Corbeck—­that there was a strange likeness between Margaret and the pictures of Queen Tera.  How could this be?  It could not be any birth-mark reproducing what had been in the mother’s mind; for Mrs. Trelawny had never seen the pictures.  Nay, even her father had not seen them till he had found his way into the tomb only a few days before her birth.  This phase I could not get rid of so easily as the last; the fibres of my being remained quiet.  There remained to me the horror of doubt.  And even then, so strange is the mind of man, Doubt itself took a concrete image; a vast and impenetrable gloom, through which flickered irregularly and spasmodically tiny points of evanescent light, which seemed to quicken the darkness into a positive existence.

The remaining possibility of relations between Margaret and the mummied Queen was, that in some occult way the Sorceress had power to change places with the other.  This view of things could not be so lightly thrown aside.  There were too many suspicious circumstances to warrant this, now that my attention was fixed on it and my intelligence recognised the possibility.  Hereupon there began to come into my mind all the strange incomprehensible matters which had whirled through our lives in the last few days.  At first they all crowded in upon me in a jumbled mass; but again the habit of mind of my working life prevailed, and they took order.  I found it now easier to control myself; for there was something to grasp, some work to be done; though it was of a sorry kind, for it was or might be antagonistic to Margaret.  But Margaret was herself at stake!  I was thinking of her and fighting for her; and yet if I were to work in the dark, I might be even harmful to her.  My first weapon in her defence was truth.  I must know and understand; I might then be able to act.  Certainly, I could not act beneficently without a just conception and recognition of the facts.  Arranged in order these were as follows: