, he had meant only to stand by
her as long as she did everything as he told her....

"No, Hugo, it is reasonable. That is what I say. I am unreasonable. I
don't seem able to help it to-day."

And Hugo, with the last remnant of his unconquerable incredulities, for
the twentieth time mentioned another day. A post-mortem flicker of
reargument started: started, but went out, quickly extinguished by the
perilous fascination of the personal. Unspoken thoughts pressed in upon
them as they circled, lifelessly reiterating. These thoughts grew
rapidly louder; and Canning, striving to keep his bitter hostility from
his tone, gave voice:

"Of course the truth is--though I am sure you don't realize it
yourself--this man has somehow got you under his influence ... A sort of
moral hypnosis ... to compel you to do what is against your nature ...
and will bring you great harm."

At what conceivable point had the grounds of discussion become so
completely metamorphosed?

"No, that isn't true. I'm not doing--"

"I suggest that in your interest ... Otherwise I should be unable to
account for the predominant part you have allowed him to play in this."

"And yet, Hugo, he was right in saying that I couldn't be happy if I
didn't tell the truth. And you don't understand that even now."

"I fear I've always been dull at these camp-meeting metaphors."

Now they had struck the greased road, and easy was the descent to
Avernus. Carlisle said, all weakness gone from her:

"Well, I don't ask you to understand any more. You feel that I'm not the
same girl--"

"I didn't say that! I asked ... if you had the right--now--to make
yourself a--different girl. By that--"

"I'm afraid I've already made myself a different girl from what you
thought. You knew that when mamma told you what I had done...."

Why couldn't he say that he wanted her twenty times over, no matter what
she had done? It would have been easy to say that half an hour ago.
Canning's reply was: "I've said again and again that you've done
nothing. All this malicious scandal cannot touch you unless you yourself
wilfully start it."

"You seem to care less about what I am, than about what people might
think I am. And yet," she added, her hand upon her heart and her breath
coming quicker and quicker, "you wonder that I let somebody else tell me
what I am."

The deliberate reference to the revivalist fellow stung Canning like the
flick of a glove in his face.

"Dr. Vivian? He