chaos of my mind was only due to my own imaginings,—­nevertheless, despite my struggles, I remained caught as it were in a web that imprisoned every faculty and sense,—­a web fine as gossamer, yet unbreakable as iron.  In a kind of desperation I raised my eyes, burning with the heat of restrained tears, and saw Santoris watching me with patient, almost appealing tenderness.  I felt that he could read my unexpressed trouble, and involuntarily I stretched out my hands to him.

“Tell me!” I half whispered-"What is it I must know?  We are strangers—­and yet—­”

He caught my hands in his own.

“Not strangers!” he said, his voice trembling a little—­“You cannot say that!  Not strangers—­but old friends!”

The strong gentleness of his clasp recalled the warm pressure of the invisible hands that had guided me out of darkness in my dream of a few nights past.  I looked up into his face, and every line of it became suddenly, startlingly familiar.  The deep-set blue eyes,—­the broad brows and intellectual features were all as well known to me as might be the portrait of a beloved one to the lover, and my heart almost stood still with the wonder and terror of the recognition.

“Not strangers,”—­he repeated, with quiet emphasis, as though to reassure me—­“Only since we last met we have travelled far asunder.  Have yet a little patience!  You will presently remember me as well as I remember you!”

With the rush of startled recollection I found my voice.

“I remember you now!”—­I said, in low, unsteady tones—­“I have seen you often—­often!  But where?  Tell me where?  Oh, surely you know!”

He still held my hands with the tenderest force,—­and seemed, like myself, to find speech difficult.  If two deeply attached friends, parted for many years, were all unexpectedly to meet in some solitary place where neither had thought to see a living soul, their emotion could hardly be keener than ours,—­and yet—­there was an invisible barrier between us—­a barrier erected either by him or by myself,—­something that held us apart.  The sudden and overpowering demand made upon our strength by the swift and subtle attraction which drew us together was held in check by ourselves,—­and it was as if we were each separately surrounded by a circle across which neither of us dared to pass.  I looked at him in mingled fear and questioning—­his eyes were gravely thoughtful and full of light.

“Yes, I know,”—­he answered, at last, speaking very softly—­while, gently releasing one of my hands, he held the other—­“I know,—­but we need not speak of that!  As I have already said, you will remember all by gradual degrees.  We are never permitted to entirely forget.  But it is quite natural that now—­at this immediate hour—­we should find it strange—­you, perhaps, more than I—­that something impels us one to the other,—­something that will not be gainsaid,—­something that if all the powers of earth and heaven could intervene, which by simplest law they cannot, will take no denial!”