ch your people will acquire
in days to come, that is, if Oro spares them. Surely you above all
should know that I am only woman," she added very slowly and searching
my face with her eyes.

"Why, Yva? During the little while that we have been together I have
seen much which makes me doubt. Even Bickley the sceptic doubts also."

"I will tell you, though I am not sure that you will believe me." She
glanced about her as though she were frightened lest someone should
overhear her words or read her thoughts. Then she stretched out her
hands and drawing my head towards her, put her lips to my ear and
whispered:

"Because once you saw me die, as women often die--giving life for life."

"I saw you die?" I gasped.

She nodded, then continued to whisper in my ear, not in her own voice,
but another's:

"Go where you seem called to go, far away. Oh! the wonderful place in
which you will find me, not knowing that you have found me. Good-bye for
a little while; only for a little while, my own, my own!"

I knew the voice as I knew the words, and knowing, I think that I should
have fallen to the ground, had she not supported me with her strong
arms.

"Who told you?" I stammered. "Was it Bickley or Bastin? They knew,
though neither of them heard those holy words."

"Not Bickley nor Bastin," she answered, shaking her head, "no, nor you
yourself, awake or sleeping, though once, by the lake yonder, you
said to me that when a certain one lay dying, she bade you seek her
elsewhere, for certainly you would find her. Humphrey, I cannot say who
told me those words because I do not know. I think they are a memory,
Humphrey!"

"That would mean that you, Yva, are the same as one who was--not called
Yva."

"The same as one who was called Natalie, Humphrey," she replied in
solemn accents. "One whom you loved and whom you lost."

"Then you think that we live again upon this earth?"

"Again and yet again, until the time comes for us to leave the earth
for ever. Of this, indeed, I am sure, for that knowledge was part of the
secret wisdom of my people."

"But you were not dead. You only slept."

"The sleep was a death-sleep which went by like a flash, yes, in an
instant, or so it seemed. Only the shell of the body remained preserved
by mortal arts, and when the returning spirit and the light of life were
poured into it again, it awoke. But during this long death-sleep, that
spirit may have spoken through other lips and that light ma