u, who's the worse? As for her
not doing so, just think of the difference a few years makes to a man,
and any severe shock. Life wears so infernally badly. Who, for that
matter, does not change, even in character and yet who professes to see
it? Mind, I don't say in essence! But then how many of the human ghosts
one meets does one know in essence? One doesn't want to. It would
be positively cataclysmic. And that's what brings me around to feel,
Lawford, if I may venture to say so, that you may have brooded a little
too keenly on--on your own case. Tell any one you feel ill; he will
commiserate with you to positive nausea. Tell any priest your soul is
in danger; will he wait for proof? It's misereres and penances world
without end. Tell any woman you love her; will she, can she, should she,
gainsay you? There you are. The cat's out of the bag, you see. My sister
and I sat up half the night talking the thing over. I said I'd take the
plunge. I said I'd risk appearing the crassest, contradictoriest wretch
that ever drew breath. I don't deny that what I hinted at the other
night must seem in part directly contrary to what I'm going to say now.'

He wheeled his black eyes as if for inspiration, and helped himself to
salad. 'It's this,' he said. 'Isn't it possible, isn't it even probable
that being ill, and overstrung, moping a little over things more or less
out of the common ruck, and sitting there in a kind of trance--isn't it
possible that you may have very largely IMAGINED the change? Hypnotised
yourself into believing it much worse--more profound, radical,
acute--and simply absolutely hypnotizing others into thinking so, too.
Christendom is just beginning to rediscover that there is such a thing
as faith, that it is just possible that, say, megrims or melancholia may
be removed at least as easily as mountains. The converse, of course,
is obvious on the face of it. A man fails because he thinks himself a
failure. It's the men that run away that lose the battle. Suppose then,
Lawford'--he leaned forward, keen and suave--'suppose you have been and
"Sabathiered" yourself!'

Lawford had grown accustomed during the last few days to finding himself
gazing out like a child into reality, as if from the windows of a dream.
He had in a sense followed this long, loosely stitched, preliminary
argument; he had at least in part realised that he sat there between
two clear friendly minds acting in the friendliest and most obvious
coll