Don't interrupt either, for our time alone may be short." Then I set to work and told him everything I knew, while he listened in blank astonishment.
"Great Heavens! what a tale," he exclaimed as I finished.

"Now, who is this Hesea who sent the letter from the Mountain?
And who, who is the Khania ?" "Who does your instinct tell you that she is, Leo ?" "Amenartas ?" he whispered doubtfully.

"The woman who wrote the _Sherd_, whom Ayesha said was the Egyptian princess--my wife two thousand years ago?
Amenartas re-born ?" I nodded.

"I think so.

Why not?
As I have told you again and again, I have always been certain of one thing, that if we were allowed to see the next act of the piece, we should find Amenartas, or rather the spirit of Amenartas, playing a leading part in it; you will remember I wrote as much in that record.
"If the old Buddhist monk Kou-en could remember _his_ past, as thousands of them swear that they do, and be sure of his identity continued from that past, why should not this woman, with so much at stake, helped as she is by the wizardry of the Shaman, her uncle, faintly remember hers?
"At any rate, Leo, why should she not still be sufficiently under its influence to cause her, without any fault or seeking of her own, to fall madly in love at first sight with a man whom, after all, she has always loved ?" "The argument seems sound enough, Horace, and if so I am sorry for the Khania, who hasn't much choice in the matter--been forced into it, so to speak." "Yes, but meanwhile your foot is in a trap again.