"I believe you have the same feeling--as if we had been here before, you and I together, as if all that surrounds us were familiar." "Is this the first time you have felt like this?" she asked eagerly. "No, but I have never felt quite what I am feeling now." Again, with puzzled brow, he glanced round. "Once," she went on, hesitatingly, "the first time we went up in the _Bladud_, you remember that night ...?" "Yes, yes, I felt it then," cried Linton, pausing. "And the other night," Zenobia continued, seriously, "when I looked from a window down on the lights of Bath I had a strange sensation as if it were a scene which I had always known, and after that I had a dream in which that feeling was confirmed." "Curious," said Linton. "Do you believe in the theory of pre-existence?" she asked, abruptly, "do you think it possible that in some former state of being you and I or others can have met before?" "It may be so," he answered gravely. "Wise men have held the theory. Who can limit the life of the ego--fix its beginning, or appoint its end?" "If the breath of God is in us," said Zenobia solemnly, "all things must be possible. We, too, must be eternal. We may sleep and we may wake, but all the time we live. The soul does not belong to time, but to Eternity, and Eternity is an everlasting Now." "Yes," said Linton, "why should not the spirit have an all-pervading presence:-- "Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man!" While they were speaking thus gravely, they entered the Botanical Garden on the slope of the hill. Opposite the bench on which they sat down they noticed a sundial of curious construction. On the face of the dial, fixed at an angle, was an iron cross. They looked at the sacred emblem, at first vaguely, and then with growing attention. Below it was an inscription. "What mysteries, what mysteries enfold us," murmured Zenobia. She turned to him with a smile and a sigh that were pathetic. "What, I wonder, is the true philosophy of life?" she whispered. Linton sat silent for a moment. Then he leaned forward, and as he did so one hand closed upon and held her own. "I think we have it here in this inscription:-- "The hours are found around the Cross, and while 'tis fine, The time is measured by a moving line, But if the sky be clouded, mark the loss Of hours not ruled by shadows from the Cross." "Ah! The Cross! The Cross!" sighed Zenobia. Linton repeated the word in a pondering and half-puzzled tone, raising his hat with instinctive reverence. "I feel more than ever that this place is not new to me," he added, rising and looking round with wondering eyes.