o that the brain should have time to rest."

"Or stagnate?" suggested Lilith coldly. "She has had--how many years is
it--ten or twelve?--of this wrapping in cotton wool, and she has
progressed--how far should you call it--one inch, or two? How much
longer shall you be content with inches? If she were in my charge--"

Rupert stopped and faced her in the narrow path. There was a hint of
roughness in his manner. When a man is strung to the finest point of
tension it is not always easy to preserve the conventions. "It is easy
to boast when one has had no experience! _What_ would you do if she
were in your charge?"

"Neglect her, ignore her, leave her to fend for herself! You and that
drudge of a nurse imagine that you are helping by waiting on her hand
and foot. What if instead you are sapping her vitality, and stealing
her chance of life? What do you leave for her to do, except to breathe?
If you could breathe for her, you would relieve her of that also! You
make her into a doll, and expect the doll to live! She is asleep, and
you feed her with drugs. Better a thousand times to waken her out of
her sleep, even if it be to suffer. It was a shock which deadened the
brain; it may be that only a shock can rouse it to life again!"

"Ah!" cried Rupert bitterly. "I have heard that theory before. It's a
devilish theory! My poor Eve! She has been tortured enough; she shall
be tortured no more. It was the horror of what she saw and heard which
caused the mischief in the beginning. The one thing I am thankful for
in this loss of memory is that that honour has faded."

Lilith looked at him with her steady eyes.

"Have you ever been delirious?" she asked him. "Not for an odd hour
here and there, but for days together, stretching out into weeks? I
_have_; and I know. Nothing real can approach the horror of the
unknown. There is no beginning to it, and no end. It's a great cloud
darkening the sky; it presses lower, lower, strangling the breath.
There is no hope in it, no appeal. Your wife saw her parents killed
before her eyes. I tell you the memory of the truth would be peaceful,
compared with this struggle in the darkness. She would realise that it
was over, that they were at rest; that it would pain them if she went
mourning all her life. I tell you, Rupert, the only chance of Eve's
recovery is to shock her into remembrance!"

"And if it were, if it were?"--he turned upon her fiercely as though
batt