The young man drew back rather disappointed. "No. I see you don't understand, Miss Enistor, or you would not call me Mr. Montrose." "You call me Miss Enistor!" replied Alice, wilfully dense. For the sake of beating her with her own weapons, he answered in kind. "Naturally I do. I am a very polite person. But I daresay, in other lives, in other climes, and when we were clothed in other bodies, I called you Chloe, or Octavia, or Isabeau, or Edith." "Greek, Roman, French, and Anglo-Saxon," commented Alice, amused; "you seem to have settled the countries we lived in. I suppose I called you Damon, or Marcus, or Jehan, or Harold--that is, supposing we were together in those days in those places." "We have always been together," said Douglas decisively. "I am quite sure." "Have you any proof?" "Only the proof of my own feelings. I am not clairvoyant to the extent of remembering my former incarnations, nor can I--as some can--consciously leave my physical body at will and return to it with a recollection of what I have seen. Now you are more advanced." "Indeed, I am not. I have learned much from my father, who knows a great deal about such psychic matters. But I have never been properly instructed and my knowledge is very limited." "But you believe in the doctrine of reincarnation?" urged Montrose eagerly. "Of course. It is a most sensible doctrine to believe, and explains nearly everything in a common-sense way. But I cannot prove my belief." "There is no need to prove it to me," said Montrose, thinking of his vision, "for I know beyond all question that we have lived and loved before." "Yes," assented the girl dreamily, "I knew you the moment you entered Mrs. Barrast's drawing-room." The young man glanced round, and, seeing that they were more or less sheltered from observation, gently took her hand. She did not remove it, although her whole body thrilled to the touch. "You knew me as what?" asked Montrose. "I can't say more than that I knew you as a familiar friend." "So cold a word," pleaded the other softly. "What other word can I use to you when we have only known each other for a single week?" "That is in this life. In other existences we knew each other for years." Alice looked down timidly. "It--is--probable," she breathed. "Then why not take up the new life at the point where the old one left off?" "We don't know how it left off, Mr. Montrose." "No. But assuredly it did at a point where you called me by my then Christian name--Alice." Her heart fluttered as he spoke thus intimately. "Perhaps we were not Christians," she said, rather embarrassed. "Ah!" he dropped her hand, "you are fencing. I merely spoke in the style of to-day to illustrate my point." "Now you are angry!" "I never could be angry with you; only you will not understand." "Perhaps I do," said Alice, with a whimsical smile. "If so, why aren't you plain with me?" said Montrose, ruffled.