One day perhaps you will read the works of my compatriot,
Hegel, and there you will find it spoken of."
"You explain nothing."
"I am about to explain, Miss Clifford. Last night I gave to your
sub-conscious self--that which knows all--the strength of liberty, so
that it saw the past as it happened in this place. Already you knew
the story of the dead girl, Benita da Ferreira, and that story you
re-enacted, talking the tongue she used as you would have talked Greek
or any other tongue, had it been hers. It was not her spirit that
animated you, although at the time I called it so for shortness, but
your own buried knowledge, tricked out and furnished by the effort of
your human imagination. That her name, Benita, should have been yours
also is no doubt a strange coincidence, but no more. Also we have no
proof that it was so; only what you said in your trance."
"Perhaps," said Benita, who was in no mood for philosophical argument.
"Perhaps also one day you will see a spirit, Mr. Meyer, and think
otherwise."
"When I see a spirit and know that it is a spirit, then doubtless
I shall believe in spirits. But what is the good of talking of such
things? I do not seek spirits; I seek Portuguese gold. Now, I am sure
you can tell where that gold lies.
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