't know, Hugo. I--I seem to have had it on my mind a good
deal lately. Perhaps he first made me think of it that way--I
don't know."

"Don't you think perhaps we might have understood each other a little
better all along, if you had talked it over with me before you talked to
him about it?"

"Yes, I do now. I didn't seem to think.... It all happened so
unexpectedly--I never planned anything at all. And then I thought--I
hoped--you would think I was doing right."

"My dear girl, nobody in his senses could possibly think you were doing
right, and nobody who cared for you could want you to abandon yourself
to the impulses of a moment of nervous hysteria."

He rose and paced the floor, four paces to the room. A handsome and
impressive figure of a man he looked, his hands rammed into the pockets
of his beautiful blue-flannel coat, his fine brow wrinkled with a
responsible frown. He was seven years older than Carlisle, and, in the
absence of Mr. Heth (whom neither telephone nor telegraph, prayer nor
fasting, had yet been able to reach), he stood as her lawful protector
and the man of her family. He must save her from the effects of her own
hysterical moment, or nobody would. Clearer and clearer it had grown
that he had to do with a distracted creature who, in a state of shock,
had somehow passed under the influence of a man of the unscrupulous
revivalist type, and upon whom, in her present mood, all reasoning was
thrown away. Gentleness and firmness were the notes for dealing with a
flare-up. Well, gentleness had been tried in vain....

Carlisle looked at Canning as he paced, in the grip of a heart-sick
fear. The same comfortable, homely little room, with tight-closed door;
the same evening sunshine filtering in across the faded carpet; the same
situation, the same man and woman. But what was this new shape that
peeped at her from behind the familiar objects? A delusion and a snare
had been her first feeling of perfect unity. But was it conceivable that
she and Hugo might _quarrel?_...

That was the one thing that could not be borne; anything to avoid that.
She must give him his way, since he would not give her hers. She must
agree to put it off till to-morrow, and then to-morrow he would still
think she was unreasonable, and so they would put it off again, forever.
She thought of Jack Dalhousie, lying on his back, but with open eyes
which did not cease to question her; of poor Dr. Vivian, even now
awaiting her word wi