"Soon after this Marius left the country, being summoned with several of the Romans to Italy. But the story of these two being handed down, the villa was looked upon as haunted by their dead spirits, and avoided as a place accursed.
"Some time later, owing to the misfortune which attended a Saxon tribe that had settled in this part, orders were given that the 'House of the Great Curse,' as it was then called, should be domed over and covered with sand, so that the evil spirits might be confined within. In a few years the grass grew on the little hillock, and long before the Norman Conquest all history connected with the place had perished."
"And that," I said, "is the ending of the story. It is a very sad one."
"It is rather," he answered; "the first chapter of what may be called our intellectual history, is usually sad. The fight between the spirit and beast nature must naturally bring about much evil; the animal is in one sense far less repulsive than the savage, as the former lacks the ingenuity with which the latter is able to enforce his brutal desires. From that day to the present time my spirit and the spirit of this girl have been more or less interwoven together through many lives and under various names. Both our natures have developed; though owing in a large measure to the incident just related, her growth has been retarded; had it not been for this, our spirits would probably have been united long before this, and have passed to a higher and nobler life together. But we shall not now have long to wait," he continued; "and I shall at last be freed from these marks."
As he said this he held his hands palm upward for me to look at, and in the centre of each was a small faint red spot.
"Those marks," he said, "I have always borne. They are one of the strange signs of the power with which the spirit, under certain circumstances, affects the body, and their having endured for so long a time shows how deeply this experience affected in some way the formation of my character."
"Tell me," I said, "where Vera is now. Is she still alive?"
"Next time we meet," he answered, "if all be well, I will show you the girl as she is now--the girl whom you have heard of as Viola and Vera--the girl whom I love!"
"She can hardly be a girl now," I said.
"Wait," he replied, "and see."