Morton Rutherford was silent for a few moments, then he said in low tones:
“I hope you will pardon me when I say, that to me, your own life here, under the existing circumstances and conditions, is a mystery, one which seems capable of but one solution.”
“And what would be your solution?” she asked quickly.
He saw that she understood his meaning, and was watching him intently, eagerly, and he said:
“Permit me to reply to your question by asking one in return. Do you not believe that your life had a beginning elsewhere than here, and under far different conditions?”
“It is more than a belief with me, it is a certainty, and yet, strange as it may appear to you, this knowledge has come to me but recently, and even now, I know nothing of what those conditions may have been, except that they were totally unlike these that exist here.”
“You interest me very much are you willing to tell me how you arrived at this knowledge of which you speak?”
Very briefly, and without going into details, Lyle, in response to the magnetic sympathy of those dark eyes, gave a vivid outline of her life, and of the vague impressions which of late were becoming distinct recollections, and of her hope of soon finding tangible evidence regarding the life which was daily growing more and more of a reality.
Mr. Rutherford listened with intense interest to the strange story, and when she had finished, he said slowly, as he took a short turn up and down the rocky path:
“Believe me, I have not listened to this through mere, idle curiosity; much as your story has interested me, it has not surprised me, for I read the truth almost from our first meeting.”