She had guessed--or did she already know ?--the Great Secret.
And, if either, was she herself near enough to the dividing line between the two worlds for him to tell her the truth?
He sat down in the chair before his writing-table and stared hard at his plotting-pad for a few moments.

Then he looked up at her and saw the answer.
"Niti," he said slowly, and with a little halt between the words, "you have asked me a question which I think some one else must answer, if it can be answered at all.

Look behind you!" She turned swiftly, and there, almost beside her, stood--not the Mummy, but the Queen, her living other-self, royal-robed and crowned as she had been in the dim past, which was now again the present.
Would she flinch or faint, or cry out with fear?
If her unconscious feet had not advanced very near to the Border she would certainly do one or the other.

Indeed, it was with an inward quaking of fear for her that her father had told her to turn.

It might well have meant the difference between sanity and insanity, knowing what she already did of the Mummy and its mysterious disappearance.