into centuries, that wills me to do this and wills me to do that. It
sounds mad to you of course, but there have been times when I have had a
wild longing to go back to it all, to what some Gorgio writers call the
pariah world--the Ishmaelites."

More than once Ingolby's heart throbbed heavily against his breast as he
felt the passion of her nature, its extraordinary truthfulness, making it
clear to him by indirect phrases that even Jethro Fawe, whom she
despised, still had a hateful fascination for her. It was all at
variance to her present self, but it summoned her through the long
avenues of ancestry, predisposition; through the secret communion of
those who, being dead, yet speak.

"It's a great story told in a great way," he said, when she had finished.
"It's the most honest thing I ever heard, but it's not the most truthful
thing I ever heard. I don't think we can tell the exact truth about
ourselves. We try to be honest; we are savagely in earnest about it,
and so we exaggerate the bad things we do, and we often show distrust of
the good things we do. That's not a fair picture. I believe you've told
me the truth as you see it and feel it, but I don't think it's the real
truth. In my mind I sometimes see an oriel window in the college where I
spent three years. I used to work and think for hours in that oriel
window, and in the fights I've been having lately I've looked back and
thought I wanted it again; wanted to be there in the peace of it all,
with the books, and the lectures, and the drone of history, and the
drudgery of examinations; but if I did go back to it, three days'd sicken
me, and if you went back to the Gipsy life three days'd sicken you."

"Yes, I know. Three hours would sicken me. But what might not happen in
those three hours! Can't you understand?"