They simply _are_; the blossoms of a plant that has its secret roots far away in the soil of Circumstance beyond our ken, and that, mayhap, has pushed its branches through existences without number, and in the climates of many worlds.
So at least it was with Isobel, and so it had always been since she kissed the sleeping child in the old refectory of the Abbey.

She was his, and in a way, however much she might doubt or mistrust, her inner sense and instinct told her that he was always hers, that so he had always been and so always would remain.

With the advent of womanhood these truths came home to her with an increased force because she knew--again by instinct--that this fact of womanhood multiplied the chances of attainment to the unity which she desired, however partial that might still prove to be.
Yet she knew also that this great mutual attraction did not depend on sex, though by the influence of sex it might be quickened and accentuated.

It was something much more deep and wide, something which she did not and perhaps never would understand.

The sex element was accidental, so much so that the passage of a few earthly years would rob it of its power to attract and make it as though it had never been, but the perfect friendship between their souls was permanent and without shadow of change.