So it came about that the more Good bothered me to read this particular
romance, the more I determined that I would do nothing of the sort.
Being a persistent person, however, when he went away about ten o'clock
at night, he deposited it by my side, under my nose indeed, so that it
might not be overlooked. Thus it came about that I could not help seeing
some Egyptian hieroglyphics in an oval on the cover, also the title,
and underneath it your own name, my friend, all of which excited
my curiosity, especially the title, which was brief and enigmatic,
consisting indeed of one word, "_She_."

I took up the work and on opening it the first thing my eye fell upon
was a picture of a veiled woman, the sight of which made my heart stand
still, so painfully did it remind me of a certain veiled woman whom once
it had been my fortune to meet. Glancing from it to the printed page one
word seemed to leap at me. It was _Kôr_! Now of veiled women there are
plenty in the world, but were there also two Kôrs?

Then I turned to the beginning and began to read. This happened in
the autumn when the sun does not rise till about six, but it was broad
daylight before I ceased from reading, or rather rushing through that
book.

Oh! what was I to make of it? For here in its pages (to say nothing of
old Billali, who, by the way lied, probably to order, when he told Mr.
Holly that no white man had visited his country for many generations,
and those gloomy, man-eating Amahagger scoundrels) once again I
found myself face to face with _She-who-commands_, now rendered as
_She-who-must-be-obeyed_, which means much the same thing--in her case
at least; yes, with Ayesha the lovely, the mystic, the changeful and the