"Don't you?" Patricia looked at him keenly, and the young sailor grew red. "Well," he said, at length, "there is no doubt that much common-sense is to be found in the belief of reincarnation. I have been so long in the East that I don't scoff at it so much as Western people do. All the same, I do not go so far as to say that I entirely believe in it. But you--you who have never been east of Suez--you can't possibly credit the fact that Mara some hundreds of years ago was a priestess in Japan?" Patricia looked straight out of the window at the azure sea, and the bright line of the distant horizon. "I dislike these weird things," she said, after a pause. "They are uncomfortable to believe, and since I have known your brother Theodore I dislike them more than ever, as he makes bad use of what he knows. I am certain of that." "Does he really know anything?" asked Basil, sceptically. "Yes," said Patricia decidedly. "I really believe he has certain powers, although they are not so much on the surface as mine. Everyone--according to him--has these powers latent, but they require to be developed. I don't want mine to be brought to the surface, as my own idea is to live a quiet and ordinary life." Basil's eyes had a look in them which asked if she wished to live her ordinary life alone. All he said, however, was: "I quite agree with you." Patricia nodded absently, being too much taken up with her own thoughts to observe his expression. "As I therefore have a belief in such things," she continued, "and a belief which has been more or less proved to my mind, by the strange feelings I experienced while holding the Mikado Jewel, I see no reason to doubt the doctrine of reincarnation. That seems to me better than anything else to answer the riddle of life. Mara is certainly, as you must admit, a strange girl." "Very strange indeed," assented Basil readily; "unlike other girls." "She has always--so she told me," went on Patricia steadily, "been trying to remember her dreams, by which, I think, she means her previous lives. She could never grasp them until last night. Then the music and the incense brought back her memories. They opened the doors, in fact, which, to most people--you and I, for instance--are closed." "Then you really believe she lived in Japan centuries ago?" asked Basil, in rather an awed tone. "Yes, I do," replied Miss Carrol firmly; "although I know that many people would laugh if I said so. This morning Mara is staying in bed and will not speak much. But I gather that the past has all returned to her. Remember how she loved to hear Count Akira's stories, and how she followed him about. He noticed that, and so acted as he did last night." "But why did he think of the Miko dance in connection with Mara?" "Theodore confessed to me--oh"--Patricia blushed--"I should not call him by his Christian name."