branches.

"I am Thorpe," was the answer in a voice that almost seemed part of the
wind. "And I have come out of our far past to help you, for my debt to
you is large, and in this life I had but small opportunity to repay."

Jones thought quickly of the man's kindness to him in the office, and a
great wave of feeling surged through him as he began to remember dimly
the friend by whose side he had already climbed, perhaps through vast
ages of his soul's evolution.

"To help me _now_?" he whispered.

"You will understand me when you enter into your real memory and recall
how great a debt I have to pay for old faithful kindnesses of long ago,"
sighed the other in a voice like falling wind.

"Between us, though, there can be no question of _debt_," Jones heard
himself saying, and remembered the reply that floated to him on the air
and the smile that lightened for a moment the stern eyes facing him.

"Not of debt, indeed, but of privilege."

Jones felt his heart leap out towards this man, this old friend, tried
by centuries and still faithful. He made a movement to seize his hand.
But the other shifted like a thing of mist, and for a moment the clerk's
head swam and his eyes seemed to fail.

"Then you are _dead_?" he said under his breath with a slight shiver.