that; I have found more mysteries in every-day, human life than I
could solve."

Morton Rutherford was silent for a few moments, then he said in low
tones:

"I hope you will pardon me when I say, that to me, your own life here,
under the existing circumstances and conditions, is a mystery, one
which seems capable of but one solution."

"And what would be your solution?" she asked quickly.

He saw that she understood his meaning, and was watching him intently,
eagerly, and he said:

"Permit me to reply to your question by asking one in return. Do you
not believe that your life had a beginning elsewhere than here, and
under far different conditions?"

"It is more than a belief with me, it is a certainty, and yet, strange
as it may appear to you, this knowledge has come to me but recently,
and even now, I know nothing of what those conditions may have been,
except that they were totally unlike these that exist here."

"You interest me very much are you willing to tell me how you arrived
at this knowledge of which you speak?"

Very briefly, and without going into details, Lyle, in response to the
magnetic sympathy of those dark eyes, gave a vivid outline of her
life, and of the vague impressions which of late were becoming
distinct recollections, and of her hope of soon finding tangible
evidence regarding the life which was daily growing more and more of a
reality.

Mr. Rutherford listened with intense interest to the strange story,
and when she had finished, he said slowly, as he took a short turn up
and down the rocky path:

"Believe me, I have not listened to this through mere, idle curiosity;
much as your story has interested me, it has not surprised me, for I
read the truth almost from our first meeting."

Lyle gave him a smile of rare sweetness and deep significance; "I am
glad to know that," she said simply.

"Why so?" he asked, pausing and seating himself beside her; "Did you
think I could fail to recognize the soul that looked out to welcome me
when I first came, no matter amid what surroundings I found it?" Then,
as she remained silent, he continued, his tones thrilling her heart as
no human voice had ever done before:

"Since the hour that I first met you, Lyle, life has changed for
me,--I think perhaps it will never be quite the same again for either
of us. I know that I love you with a love that, whether reciprocated
or not, can never die; that henceforth, you will be,--you must be,--a
part of