“I did not believe, but I—shall I say, hoped? No, scarcely that. Mr. Helven, when loss and grief and anxiety are brought close home to us, to our very hearts, where are we? Where are theories, beliefs?” Helven looked at Hugh, whose pale cheeks were flushed with excitement, as he might have looked at a newly-found specimen of a rare _genus_. “I have never married,” he said, dryly. “I do not understand these family feelings.” “Would you understand a being who rose from the dead to bear witness to your theories?” asked Hugh. “When it happens, I will tell you my opinion,” said Helven. “It has happened to me,” said Dr. Paull. “At least, when you hear what I have to tell you, you will, I think, be glad that we have met—years ago and now.” Helven assured him he was not credulous, nor easily convinced. “Hear me before you say more,” said Hugh. Then he recounted his meeting with the princess, the attraction she had felt for him, the deep, almost terribly strong affection that he had discovered to exist for her in his mind, and the mystery of her visions of the crucial hour of his life. “What you say is peculiar, and would certainly bear favourably upon the development of a case of transmigration,” Helven admitted. “But there are other theories to be considered. We do not at present understand the influence that embodied spirits have upon each other.” Then he discoursed learnedly about natural affinities, of the attraction between certain human beings of opposite sexes, even at a first most cursory meeting. “When material law meets spiritual law, it is difficult, almost impossible, to detect which of the two is at work,” he concluded by saying. “I can assure you, doctor, I could have filled volumes with cases of possible metempsychosis as plausible, as well authenticated as yours, had I believed that the record would further faith in that which I believe to be a fundamental truth.” “The most staggering fact of all I have not yet told you,” said Hugh, somewhat repelled by the cool and calculating reception of his experiences by the philosopher. “My wife died on a certain date. Nine months, less two days afterwards, this girl, who is conversant with my life story without ever having learned it, who knows more of my true history than any one alive, was born.” Helven looked curiously at him. “That is certainly strange,” he said, more interested. Then he entered notes, in a shorthand of his own invention, in one of the manuscript volumes devoted to cases of this sort, and Hugh, somewhat astonished, took leave. He could not understand Helven’s apathy. Placing himself in imagination in the old scientist’s place, he fancied that he would have been excited to enthusiasm at the statement of a case such as his. If he could have seen and heard Helven as he left him! The old philosopher looked after him with a smile and a sigh.