At least _thou_ canst not lie at thine own altar, and I charge thee, by the dread name of that Power to which thou also must render thy account, that thou answer now and here.
"Who is this man to whom my being yearns?
What has he been to me?
What has he to do with thee?
Speak, O Oracle and make the secret clear.
Speak, I command, even though afterwards thou dost slay me--if thou canst." "Aye, speak! speak!" said Leo, "for know I am in sore suspense.

I also am bewildered by memories and rent with hopes and fears." And I too echoed, "Speak!" "Leo Vincey," asked the Hesea, after she had thought awhile, "whom dost thou believe me to be ?" "I believe," he answered solemnly, "that thou art that Ayesha at whose hands I died of old in the Caves of Kor in Africa.

I believe thou art that Ayesha whom not twenty years ago I found and loved in those same Caves of Kor, and there saw perish miserably, swearing that thou wouldst return again." "See now, how madness can mislead a man," broke in Atene triumphantly.
"'Not twenty years ago,' he said, whereas I know well that more than eighty summers have gone by since my grandsire in his youth saw this same priestess sitting on the Mother's throne." "And whom dost thou believe me to be, O Holly ?" the Priestess asked, taking no note of the Khania's words.
"What he believes I believe," I answered.

"The dead come back to life--sometimes.

Yet alone thou knowest the truth, and by thee only it can be revealed." "Aye," she said, as though musing, "the dead come back to life--sometimes--and in strange shape, and, mayhap, I know the truth.
To-morrow when yonder body is borne on high for burial we will speak of it again.