"You now know what Alice Enistor has to do with you," said Eberstein in a quiet impressive tone.
"I don't in one way," faltered the still bewildered young man, "and yet I do in another. All I can be certain of is that she is mine."
"Undoubtedly. She is yours and you are hers."
"Then why could we not come together?"
"The shadow of your sin came between and parted you."
"My sin?"
"That which you committed five thousand years ago," explained the doctor patiently. "Then, self-willed, self-centred, you would not wait the striking of the hour which would have made you one, and therefore, seeking to obtain your desire by force, you broke the Great Law. The Great Law broke you, as it breaks all who disobey. For many ages your soul and her soul have been asunder, but now in the fullness of time you meet again on this physical plane in new vestments of flesh. But your sin has not yet been expiated, and you cannot yet be one with her you love. The shadow stands between you twain and will stand until the debt is paid."
"The shadow—the man?" stammered Montrose confusedly.
"You owe him a life!"