“Yes, I did,” she replied unexpectedly. “But—do you believe all of it?”

“Believe that it really happened?” I asked in bewilderment.

“No,” said Nichola, catching up a corner of the table-cloth in her brown fingers; “believe what she said—in the door there?”

It came to me then dimly, but before I could tell or remember....

“That about ‘If we hadn’t never met,’” Nichola quoted; “‘it sorter seems as though my love would ’a’ followed you up even if I didn’t know about it an’ mebbe you’d ’a’ heard it somewheres an’ ’a’ thought you was a-wishin’ or a-dreamin’—’ that part,” said Nichola.

And then I understood—I understood.

“Nichola,” I said, “yes. I believe it with all my heart. I know it is so!”

Nichola looked at me wistfully.

“But wishin’ may be just wishin’,” she said, “an’ dreamin’ nights may be just dreamin’ nights—”

“Never,” I cried positively. “Most of the time these are voices of the people who would have loved us if we had ever met.”