“Who told you?” I stammered. “Was it Bickley or Bastin? They knew, though neither of them heard those holy words.”
“Not Bickley nor Bastin,” she answered, shaking her head, “no, nor you yourself, awake or sleeping, though once, by the lake yonder, you said to me that when a certain one lay dying, she bade you seek her elsewhere, for certainly you would find her. Humphrey, I cannot say who told me those words because I do not know. I think they are a memory, Humphrey!”
“That would mean that you, Yva, are the same as one who was—not called Yva.”
“The same as one who was called Natalie, Humphrey,” she replied in solemn accents. “One whom you loved and whom you lost.”
“Then you think that we live again upon this earth?”
“Again and yet again, until the time comes for us to leave the earth for ever. Of this, indeed, I am sure, for that knowledge was part of the secret wisdom of my people.”
“But you were not dead. You only slept.”
“The sleep was a death-sleep which went by like a flash, yes, in an instant, or so it seemed. Only the shell of the body remained preserved by mortal arts, and when the returning spirit and the light of life were poured into it again, it awoke. But during this long death-sleep, that spirit may have spoken through other lips and that light may have shone through other eyes, though of these I remember nothing.”
“Then that dream of our visit to a certain star may be no dream?”
“I think no dream, and you, too, have thought as much.”