"Go on. Tell me exactly how you feel," he said encouragingly. "It will help me to put you right."
"But behind all that," she continued hesitatingly, "I seem to remember many strange things—things which must have happened a long, long time ago. They are not things I have been told about, or read of! I can remember them. They must have happened to me. Powers, it makes me afraid."
He looked at her with ill-concealed excitement.
"It is the sea," she murmured, "which seems always to be reminding me of things."
She came a little closer to him. His heart beat fiercely. Her eyes sought his—the appeal of the weak to the strong. He crushed down his joy—yet it shone in his face, trembled in his tone.
"Shall I ever be like other girls?"
He took her hands in his. She yielded them readily, but they were cold as ice.
"I am perfectly sure of it," he declared. "You must trust in me and be patient."
She held his hands tightly as though wrung with a sudden emotion—an emotion which he realized was one of fear alone.
"Powers," she begged, "will you lock my door at night? Lock all the doors in the house."