At first the shock of his words deprived me of any power to think. I was not offended, I was simply speechless. He forgot who I was and what my life had been, forgot my relation with himself, forgot also the brevity of my acquaintance with his wife. He forgot, too, that I had accepted her, an inferior woman, accepted her without a hint of regret--nay, let me use the word I mean--of contempt that he, my friend, had linked his life with such a being--married her. And, further, he forgot all that was due to himself, to me, to _her!_ It was too distressing. What could he possibly think of me, of himself, of her, that so outrageous a statement, and without a shred of evidence, could pass his lips? I, a middle-aged professor of geology, with an established position in the world! And she, a parlour-maid he had been wild enough to marry for the sake of some imagined dream, a woman, moreover, I had seen for the first time a short hour before, and with whom I had exchanged a few sentences in bare politeness, remembering that this uneducated creature was the wife of my old friend, and----! Thought galloped on in indignant disorder and agitation. The pretence was so apparent even to myself. But I remained speechless. For while he spoke, looking me calmly in the eye, without a sign of _arrière pensée_, I realised in a flash--that it all was true. Like the witness who still believes in his indignant answers until the lawyer puts questions that confound him by unexpected self-revelation--I suddenly saw--myself. My own heart opened in a blaze of fire. It was the truth. And all this came upon me, not in a flash, but in a series of flashes. I had not known it. I now discovered myself, but for the first time. Layer after layer dropped away. The naked fact shone clearly. “It is exactly what I hoped,” he went on quietly. “It proves memory beyond all further doubt. A love like yours and hers can never die. Even another thirty thousand years could make no difference--the instant you met you would be bound to take it up again--exactly where you left it off--no matter how long the interval of separation. The first sign would be this divine and natural intimacy.” “Of course.” How I said it passes my understanding. I swear my lips moved without my mind’s consent. The words slipped out. I couldn’t help myself. The same instant some words he had used in our Edinburgh days came back to me: that human love was somehow necessary to him, since love was the greatest power in the world, the supreme example of “feeling-with.” Without its aid--that majestic confidence it brings--his great experiment must be impossible and fail. That union which is love was necessary.