“And it is that living woman you are in love with,” I concluded.
“Yes, and I am not so mad after all.”
“You would not be if only that woman had a real existence.”
“A real existence?” he said in surprise; “a strong idea will realise itself somehow. My dear Warnock,”—his voice fell almost to a whisper, and he spoke with a strange eagerness—“you think me mad as it is, but at what I am going to say you will think me too far gone for argument. The idea which, according to tradition, has lived in the minds of an hereditary priesthood from remote ages, has taken possession of mine also. I mean the strong belief that Hinauri, as she is in that stone, will return.”
I looked at him aghast. “Can you give a reason for your belief?”
“None whatever!”
“Then you admit it is contrary to all reason, and yet you believe it.”
“I do not admit it is contrary to all reason; it may be in accord with some reason of which you and I are ignorant.”
“It seems to me, that there can be no reasonable foundation for the idea that a stone will suddenly turn into flesh and blood.”
“Yet the idea that was made stone might also be made flesh.”