if to ward
off something horrible. Leaning forwards she gripped his shoulder. "It's
so silly! Besides, think how cowardly it is to say you must do a thing
because someone else has done it."

"It's killed lots of my people, or landed them in asylums--they're not
talked about in the family, but I know it," he raved.

"Well, I think you're a perfect idiot," she cried impatiently. "Why, if
you saw about twenty people on this ship walk overboard in a procession,
that's no reason why you should do it too, is it?"

"That just shows you don't understand the power of suggestion," he said.
"At the hospital--I'll never forget it. There was a girl brought in
dying of burns. We got it from her that she was very unhappy and had set
herself on fire because the woman next door had been burnt to death. Old
Professor Hay, our lecturer in psychology, explained it to us. He said
the girl was in a weak state of nerves and health generally, owing to
family troubles she'd had to shoulder. She was receptive to suggestion,
you see. And she was too tired to think logically. Seeing the burnt
woman there very peaceful, and people sorry for her--don't you see?"

Marcella nodded.

"I'm pretty sure I'd never have got to this state of things if I'd never
known it was in the family. It seems inevitable, as if I'm working out a
laid-down law."

"Louis, I'm not very clever. As I told you, father used to call me a
double-distilled idiot when he got in a temper. But I do think you're
wrong. People are not a part of families nearly so much as they are
themselves. Besides--imagine letting anything get you down, and put
chains on you like that!" she added scornfully.

"You don't know what you're talking about," he said bitterly. "It
simply chews you up, gnaws holes in you."

She thought of what Dr. Angus had said.

"Well then, patch yourself up and go on again."

"But after all, why should you? There's nobody cares tuppence now what
happens to me. I'm an outcast."

"Louis, what was that you promised your mother--I heard you on the ship
just as the tender was going? Didn't you promise to make yourself
better?"

"Yes, but I've been thinking about it. Why should I? What does it really
matter to the Mater? She didn't care enough not to have me spewed out of
home. She's at home now; they'll be sitting round the dinner-table after
a tip-top meal. Presently they'll be playing whist and congratulating
themselves that I'm safely out of England. They'll