Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/31

 leave his study to see me. It was useless being offended with him. I waited.

Then one day I had a telegram:—

"Come at once if you can."

I jumped into a hansom, and half an hour later was seated in the dear old museum once more, beside the great log fire, which burned cheerfully in the grate. I had said nothing when first I saw Hugh. I was too much shocked at his altered, emaciated appearance: he looked like his own ghost, wandering about among the mummies. I could see that he was terribly excited: he was pacing about the room, muttering strange and incoherent words. For a moment I had feared that his reason had begun to give way under the terrible strain of absorbing brain work.

"It was good of you to come, Mark."

"I was only too happy that you sent for me, old Girlie," I said sadly.

"I have done the work."

"Thank God for that!"

"And now I must have your help."

"Thank God again, Girlie! What is it?"

Silently he took my hand and led me across the room, behind the ponderous desk which I remembered so well in his father's lifetime.

"Here is the work, it took forty years—my father's whole life and my own youth—to complete."

He pointed to a large flat case, placed slanting on the desk, so as to receive the full light from the window. The top of the case was a sheet of clear plate-glass, beneath which I saw, what I at first took to be a piece of brown rag, frayed and irregular at the edges and full of holes. Again the terrible thought flashed across