of former individual lives, was a definitely knowable power, accessible to the trained mind of the pandit, had commenced to haunt him. As time went on the idea had grown on him until it was only thinly separated from actual belief, until finally it was accepted as true—not by his whole consciousness, but by some outlying tract of it which was inactive as long as he was in the company of others.
When he lectured at the University and when he was alone with his wife he suffered from spiritual nostalgia. Only here in his study he was at home, and he wandered deeper and ever deeper into himself, into some state of tremendous freedom, simplicity and brutality, toward a zone where he lost touch with all that had hitherto constituted Life to him—including his wife.
And to-day the belief was there, alive, palpable. Unconsciously his wife had touched the releasing spring when she had spoken of Tartars.
He trembled with a fearful joy.
For he was suddenly positive that the power which had haunted him was his, that it was flashing across his brain with a dazzling sheen that brought him to the threshold of ecstasy.
