ce is to become
weaker, and to make it easy to yield,"

I understood. He could read me. He knew my weakness. How he knew I could
not know; nor did I care. He was a profound soul; he knew the mind if
ever yet mere man knew mind; he could read what was going on in the mind
by the language of the features and the body. Especially did he know me.
But possibly his knowledge was only general; he might infer, from
apparent symptoms, that some mental trouble was now pressing hard upon
me, and, without knowing the special nature of the trouble, might be
prescribing the exercise of the will as a general remedy. Yet it
mattered nothing to me, at the moment, I thought, how he knew.

"You will not yield," said he.

I closed my eyes, and thought of Lydia, and of my father, and of
Willis, and of Jones, and of nothing connectedly.

"Do you remember," he asked, "the first time you came with me to the
little cottage in Charleston?"

I nodded.

"At that time you were passing a crisis. I would not tell you to will.
Do you remember it?"

Again I nodded assent.

"To will at another's dictation is impossible. The will is free. If I
should tell you to will any certain thing, it would do no good. All that
I can do is to say that the will is free."

His finger was yet on my lips. My mind had taken in all that he said,
although my thought was giddy. He was clearly right. If I should
surrender once, it would be hard to recover my former ground. Yet I
doubted my power to will. The doubt brought terror. I wished that he
would speak again.

"The power of habit is not lost in a moment. It may be unobserved, or
dormant even, but it is not destroyed. No man accustomed to keep himself
in subjection can fail to distinguish temptation from surrender."

How well he could read me!

"The desire to will may momentarily fail through bodily weakness, or
through fear--which is the same thing. But he who can will when he
desires to will not, conquers himself doubly."

I put his hand away and rose.

"What time is it, Doctor?" I asked.

"Half-past ten," said he, without looking at his watch.

"I must report to General Morell at eleven," I said.

"We must not waste time, then," he said; "who accompanies you?"

"I go alone."

He looked at me searchingly, then grasped my hand. He understood.

"You have strengthened your will; good. Now I will strengthen your
body."

He went to a small chest, from which he took a flask. He poured a
spoonful