"I love him," answered Christina. "I cannot help it."

Old Nicholas sat alone before the dying fire. Is it the soul or the
body that is the real man? The answer was not so simple as he had
thought it.

"Christina loved Jan"--so Nicholas mumbled to the dying fire--"when he
had the soul of Jan. She loves him still, though he has the soul of
Nicholas Snyders. When I asked her if she could love me, it was
terror I read in her eyes, though Jan's soul is now in me; she divined
it. It must be the body that is the real Jan, the real Nicholas. If
the soul of Christina entered into the body of Dame Toelast, should I
turn from Christina, from her golden hair, her fathomless eyes, her
asking lips, to desire the shrivelled carcass of Dame Toelast? No; I
should still shudder at the thought of her. Yet when I had the soul
of Nicholas Snyders, I did not loathe her, while Christina was naught
to me. It must be with the soul that we love, else Jan would still
love Christina and I should be Miser Nick. Yet here am I loving
Christina, using Nicholas Snyders' brain and gold to thwart Nicholas
Snyders' every scheme, doing everything that I know will make him mad
when he comes back into his own body; while Jan cares no longer for
Christina, would marry Dame Toelast for her broad lands, her many
mills. Clearly it is the soul that is the real man. Then ought I not
to be glad, thinking I am going back into my own body, knowing that I
shall wed Christina? But I am not glad; I am very miserable. I shall
not go with Jan's soul, I feel it; my own soul will come back to me.
I shall be again the hard, cruel, mean old man I was before, only now
I shall be poor and helpless. The folks will laugh at me, and I shall
curse them, powerless to do them evil. Even Dame Toelast will not