“Is it not also in Charlotte’s palm?  In others?”

“No, indeed.  Among all the women on earth, only yours has this facsimile of my own.  It is the soul mark upon the body.  Every educated Hindoo can trace it; and all will tell you, that, if two individuals have it precisely alike, they are twin souls, and nothing can prevent their union.”

“Did they explain it to you, Julius?”

“An Oriental never explains.  They apprehend what is too subtle for words.  They know best just what they have never been told.  Sophia, this hand of yours fits mine.  It is the key to it; the interpreter of my fate.  Give me my own, darling.”

To Charlotte he would never have spoken in such a tone.  She would have resented its claim and authority, and perceived that it was likely to be the first encroachment of a tyranny she did not intend to bow to.  But Sophia was easily deceived on this ground.  She liked the mystical air it gave to the event; the gray sanction of unknown centuries to the love of to-day.

They speculated and supposed, and were supremely happy.  The usual lover wanders in the dreams of the future:  they sought each other through the phantom visions of the past.  And they were so charmed with the occupation, that they quite forgot the exigencies and claims of the present existence until the rattle of wheels, the stamping of feet, and a joyful cry from Mrs. Sandal recalled them to it.

“It is Harry,” said Sophia.  “I must go to him, Julius.”

He held her very firmly.  “I am first.  Wait a moment.  You must promise me once more:  ’My life is your life, my love is your love, my will is your will, my interest is your interest; I am your second self.’  Will you say this Sophia, as I say it?” And she answered him without a word.  Love knows how such speech may be.  Even when she had escaped from her lover, she was not very sorry to find that Harry had gone at once to his own room; for he had driven through the approaching storm, and been thoroughly drenched.  She was longing for a little solitude to bethink her of the new position in which she found herself; for, though she had a dreamy curiosity about her pre-existences, she had a very active and positive interest in the success and happiness of her present life.

Suddenly she remembered Charlotte, and with the remembrance came the fact that she had not seen her since the early forenoon.  But she immediately coupled the circumstance with the absence of the squire, and then she reached the real solution of the position in a moment.  “They have gone to Up-Hill, of course.  Father always goes the day before Christmas; and Charlotte, no doubt, expected to find Steve at home.  I must tell Julius about Charlotte and Steve.  Julius will not approve of a young man like Steve in our family, and it ought not to be.  I am sure father and mother think so.”

At this point in her reflections, she heard Charlotte enter her own room, but she did not go to her.  Sophia had a dislike to wet, untidy people, and she was not in any particular flurry to tell her success.  Indeed, she was rather inclined to revel for an hour in the sense of it belonging absolutely to Julius and herself.  She was not one of those impolitic women, who fancy that they double their happiness by imparting it to others.