Everything they discussed seemed to open for Alyna new vistas of history and geography, places she had read about and always prayed that one day she might visit.

Finally, when they withdrew into a small salon where a fire had been kindled as the night was chill, Alyna sat down on the sofa.

“Have you had a happy day?” Lord Dorrington asked.

“Much happier than I can ever tell you,” Alyna replied. “It has been fascinating. How could you in so short a life collect such an enormous amount or know so much about them?”

“I am old,” Lord Dorrington said with a smile, “eleven years older than you!”

He looked at her hair glinting in the firelight and went on,

“I too have enjoyed today. I never expected to find you so interested or indeed so intelligent about the things I possess and that mean so much to me.”

“It’s not very complimentary that you sound so surprised about it,” Alyna retorted.

Lord Dorrington smiled.

“You are very young.”

Alyna gave a little laugh.

“Do you really think that?”

“What do you mean?”

“My body is young,” she replied, “but I know that in I myself I am old – very old. I am sure, completely and absolutely sure, that I have lived before and that I have suffered and have known many different sorts of lives. Sometimes I think I half-remember them.”

“The wheel of rebirth,” Lord Dorrington said quietly.

She looked at him in astonishment.

“You understand what I am trying to say?”

“Yes indeed,” he answered. “When I was in India, I studied Yoga and my Guru, or Master, was naturally a Buddhist.”

For a moment Alyna stared at him incredulously and then she rose from the sofa to fling herself down on the floor at his feet.

“Tell me! Tell me about it!” she begged. “I have wanted all my life to find someone who believes as I believe, who knows as I know, that this is not the only life we live.”

“Why are you so convinced that reincarnation is possible?” Lord Dorrington asked.

“When I read about Buddhism, it meant something to me,” Alyna replied. “I felt that I understood it, I saw it so clearly. Then I found that I could understand so many things about myself. My longing for other lands and the feeling that when I read about them it was something I had known before.”

She paused then said slowly,

“When I first saw the – Prince, I knew that it was not the – first time we had – met.”

They talked until after midnight.

Alyna had never been so happy. Even her father had not understood how sincerely she believed that this was not the first time she had passed through the world.

He had listened to her fantasies, but she knew that he only gave her half of his attention. He wanted to teach her and he did not believe that his disciple could give him anything in return.