“When?” “When you came to see me after I was better, and you and Mr. Selden were going North with Mr. Recklow. Don’t you remember; I was lying in the hammock in the moonlight, and Victor told you I was asleep?” “Yes, of course——” “I was not asleep. I had _made the effort_ and I was with Yulun.... I did not know you were standing beside my hammock in the moonlight until Yulun told me.... And _that_ is what I am to tell you; Yulun saw you.... And Yulun has written it in Chinese, in Eighur characters and in Arabic,—tracing them with her forefinger in the air—that Yulun, loveliest in Yian, flame-slender and very white, has seen her heart, like a pink pearl afire, burning between your august hands.” “My hands!” exclaimed Benton, very red. There fell an odd silence. Nobody laughed. Tressa came nearer to Benton, wistful, uncertain, shy. “Would you care to see Yulun?” she asked. “Well—no,” he said, startled. “I—I shall not deny that such things worry me a lot, Mrs. Cleves. I’m a—an Episcopalian.” The tension released, Selden was the first to laugh. “There’s no use blinking the truth,” he said; “we’re up against something absolutely new. Of course, it isn’t magic. It can, of course, be explained by natural laws about which we happen to know nothing at present.” Recklow nodded. “What do we know about the human mind? It has been proven that no thought can originate within that mass of convoluted physical matter called the brain. It has been proven that _something outside_ the brain originates thought and uses the brain as a vehicle to incubate it. What do we know about thought?” Selden, much interested, sat cogitating and looking at Mrs. Cleves. But Benton, still flushed and evidently nervous, sat staring out of the window at the full moon, and twisting an unlighted cigarette to shreds. “Why didn’t you tell Benton when the thing occurred down there at Orchid Lodge, the night we called to say good-bye?” asked Selden, curiously. Tressa gave him a distressed smile: “I was afraid he wouldn’t believe me. And I was afraid that you and Mr. Recklow, even if you believed it, might not like—like me any the better for—for being clairvoyant.” Recklow came over, bent his handsome grey head, and kissed her hand. “I never liked any woman better, nor respected any woman as deeply,” he said. And, lifting his head, he saw tears sparkling in her eyes. “My dear,” he said in a low voice, and his firm hand closed over the slim fingers he had kissed. Benton got up from his chair, went to the window, turned shortly and came over to Tressa. “You’re braver than I ever could learn to be,” he said shortly. “I ask your pardon if I seem sceptical. I’m more worried than incredulous. There’s something born in me—part of me—that shrinks from anything that upsets my orthodox belief in the future life. But—if you wish me to see this—this girl—Yulun—it’s quite all right.”