"Yes. How do you know, if you have never been here before?" Beatrice burst forth, her amazement increasing as Idris proceeded to enumerate other details.
"Mr. Breakspear, you must have been here before!"
"Never! I solemnly assure you; at least, not in the body."
He walked towards the head of an oblong marble sepulchre, surmounted by the gilt effigy of a crusading Ravengar, lying in cross-legged repose.
"Mark me," he said, turning to Beatrice, "I shall find on the other side of this tomb a circular hole large enough to admit my hand."
At the foot of the stone knight was sculptured the heraldic shield of the Ravengars, much defaced, and crumbling with age; in the first quartering of which was a round orifice of sufficient dimensions to admit the insertion of Idris' hand.
"What do you say to this?" he asked of Beatrice, who had followed him to the tomb.
But Beatrice, full of wonderment, could say nothing.
"I have a distinct remembrance of placing my hand here in days gone by," Idris continued. "Yes: I have been in this church before: I am as certain of that as I am of my own existence. But how? There's the puzzle. Not in the body, for my life has been passed at a distance from Ormsby. How then? Has the knowledge been imparted to me in a dream? Or is it a fact that during sleep the spirit of man may visit distant places? Or was old Pythagoras right in asserting that we have all had a previous existence? Am I a reincarnation of one who was familiar with this place in time past? Miss Ravengar, how is one to explain this psychological puzzle?"
Beatrice's reply was checked by a light footfall. A young lady, attired in a soft clinging dress of muslin, was coming slowly towards the chantry.