“Marvellous! marvellous!” she repeated.
He leapt up on to the stone beside her. “You’ve believed me. That’s the only thing that’s marvellous. The rest’s nothing.” He flung his arms round her, and embraced her—an embrace very different from the decorous peck by which he had marked the commencement of their engagement. Mildred, clinging to him, murmured “I do believe you,” and they gazed without flinching into each other’s eyes.
Harold broke the silence, saying, “How very happy life is going to be.”
But Mildred was still wrapped in the glamour of the past. “More! more!” she cried, “tell me more! What was the city like—and the people in it? Who were you?”
“I don’t remember yet—and it doesn’t matter.”
“Harold, keep nothing from me! I will not breathe a word. I will be silent as the grave.”
“I shall keep nothing. As soon as I remember things, I will tell them. And why should you tell no one? There’s nothing wrong.”
“They would not believe.”
“I shouldn’t mind. I only minded about you.”
“Still—I think it is best a secret. Will you agree?”
“Yes—for you may be right. It’s nothing to do with the others. And it wouldn’t interest them.”
“And think—think hard who you were.”
“I do just remember this—that I was a lot greater then than I am now. I’m greater now than I was this morning, I think—but then!”
“I knew it! I know it from the first! I have known it always. You have been a king—a king! You ruled here when Greece was free!”
“Oh! I don’t mean that—at least I don’t remember it. And was I a Greek?”
“A Greek!” she stammered indignantly. “Of course you were a Greek, a Greek of Acragas.”
“Oh, I daresay I was. Anyhow it doesn’t matter. To be believed! Just fancy! you’ve believed me. You needn’t have, but you did. How happy life is!”
He was in an ecstacy of happiness in which all time except the present had passed away. But Mildred had a tiny thrill of disappointment. She reverenced the past as well.
“What do you mean then, Harold, when you say you were greater?”
“I mean I was better, I saw better, heard better, thought better.”
“Oh, I see,” said Mildred fingering her watch. Harold, in his most prosaic manner, said they must not keep the carriage waiting, and they regained the path.
The tide of rapture had begun to ebb away from Mildred. His generalities bored her. She longed for detail, vivid detail, that should make the dead past live. It was of no interest to her that he had once been greater.
“Don’t you remember the temples?”
“No.”
“Nor the people?”
“Not yet.”
“Don’t you at all recollect what century you lived in?”
“How on earth am I to know!” he laughed.
Mildred was silent. She had hoped he would have said the fifth BC—the period in which she was given to understand that the Greek race was at its prime. He could tell her nothing; he did not even seem interested, but began talking about Mrs. Popham’s present.
At last she thought of a question he might be able to answer. “Did you also love better?” she asked in a low voice.
“I loved very differently.” He was holding back the brambles to prevent them from tearing her dress as he spoke. One of the thorns scratched him on the hand. “Yes, I loved better too,” he continued, watching the little drops of blood swell out.
“What do you mean? Tell me more.”
“I keep saying I don’t know any more. It is fine to remember that you’ve been better than you are. You know, Mildred, I’m much more worth you than I’ve ever been before. I do believe I am fairly great.”
“Oh!” said Mildred, who was getting bored.
They had reached the temple of Concord, and he retrieved his tactlessness by saying, “After all I’m too happy to go back yet. I love you too much. Let’s rest again.”
They sat down on the temple steps, and at the end of ten minutes Mildred had forgotten all her little disappointments, and only remembered this mysterious sleep, and his marvellous awakening. Then, at the very height of her content, she felt, deep down within her, the growth of a new wonder.
“Harold, how is it you can remember?”
“The lid can’t have been put on tight last time I was sent out.”
“And that,” she murmured, “might happen to anyone.”
“I should think it has—to lots. They only want reminding.”
“It might happen to me.”
“Yes.”
“I too,” she said slowly, “have often not been able to sleep. Oh, Harold, is it possible?”
“What?”
“That I have lived before.”
“Of course it is.”
“Oh, Harold, I too may remember.”
“I hope you will. It’s wonderful to remember a life better than this one. I can’t explain how happy it makes you: there’s no need to try or to worry. It’ll come if it is coming.”
“Oh, Harold! I am remembering!”
He grasped her hands crying, “Remember only what is good. Remember that you were greater than you are now! I would give my life to help you.”
“You have helped me,” she cried, quivering with excitement. “All fits together. I remember all. It is not the first time I have known you. We have met before. Oh, how often have I dimly felt it. I felt it when I watched you sleeping—but then I didn’t understand. Our love is not new. Here in this very place when there was a great city full of gorgeous palaces and snow-white marble temples, full of poets and music, full of marvellous pictures, full of sculptures of which we can hardly dream, full of noble men and noble thoughts, bounded by the sapphire sea, covered by the azure sky, here in the wonderful youth of Greece did I speak to you and know you and love you. We walked through the marble streets, we led solemn sacrifices, I armed you for the battle, I welcomed you from the victory. The centuries have parted us, but not forever. Harold, I too have lived at Acragas!”
Round
