The quiet voice replied indifferently. "Yes. I have not held your hand nor have I contacted your atmosphere closely. Still, I am sufficiently in touch with you to state that you bring a woman in your aura." "In my what?" asked the Colonel, wilfully dense. "The aura of your magnetism streams from you radiant as a rainbow. In it is standing the thought-form of a girl. She is not very tall, she has blue eyes and golden hair, and you love her. Am I right?" "I shan't say," replied the Colonel, secretly surprised to hear this description of Ida and the statement of his feelings towards her. "Humph!" He made a half unwilling admission, "you have some psychic powers, after all. Tell me more." "Give me your ring," commanded Diabella imperiously. "It is impregnated with your magnetism and will thus suggest your colour." "My colour?" repeated the Colonel interrogatively and removing his signet ring to place it on the ebony table. Diabella picked it up and held it in the hollow of her right hand. "Every human being in the unseen world around has a colour which is the prevailing hue of the karmic body, tinted by desire. I can thus recognise you as you appear on the astral plane, and so can read your karma of the past, which appears in the astral records. Thence I can deduce your future for good or evil, in a great measure correctly." "Then you can't be certain that what you tell me is true?" "No. Under certain circumstances, when the High Ones permit, the future is revealed beyond all doubt, but those circumstances are connected only with spiritual enlightenment. Otherwise those who have the sight merely deduce what will happen by reading the karma of the past, which can be discerned in the astral light." "Your claims are certainly more modest than I expected," said Towton somewhat interested, "and if you can tell me my past life correctly I shall credit more or less your prophecies. You know my name?" "Richard Towton." "Ah--you got that from my letter asking for an appointment. But I have a middle name which I don't use. What is it?" "Richard Henry Towton is your full name." "Correct. Where was I educated?" "At Wimperly Public School, and then at Sandhurst." Towton nodded. "You might be certain of Sandhurst, as I am a soldier, but Wimperly is good. Go on." "You joined your regiment twenty-five years ago, and shortly after joining it was ordered to India. You were stationed at Bombay, afterwards at Travancore. You fought in Burmah, where you met Martin Dimsdale, and became intimate with him. You won a D.S.O. in the Vikram Expedition, and----" "All that," interrupted the Colonel politely, "with the exception of my meeting with Dimsdale, you might have read in the newspapers. Why did I retire from the army?" "Your cousin died and left you The Grange at Bowderstyke, in Yorkshire. You gave up your profession so as to get the estates in order: they had been sadly neglected by your cousin, who was a drunkard."