a poison of which the moral organization
can only bear a certain fixed amount, great or small, before rejecting
it altogether and with loathing. We do not know. We speak of the
workings of conscience, not understanding what we mean. It is like that
subtle something which we call electricity; we can play with it, command
it, lead it, neutralise it and die of it, make light and heat with it,
or language and sound, kill with it and cure with it, while absolutely
ignorant of its nature. We are no nearer to a definition of it than the
Greek who rubbed a bit of amber and lifted with it a tiny straw, and
from amber, Elektron called the something electricity. Are we even as
near as that to a definition of the human conscience?

The change that had come over Unorna, whether it was to be lasting or
not, was profound. The circumstances under which it took place are plain
enough. The reasons must be left to themselves--it remains only to tell
the consequences which thereon followed.

The first of these was a hatred of that extraordinary power with which
nature had endowed her, which brought with it a determination never
again to make use of it for any evil purpose, and, if possible, never
even for good.

But as though her unhappy fate were for ever fighting against her good
impulses, that power of hers had exerted itself unconsciously, since
her resolution had been formed. Keyork Arabian's words, and his evident
though unspoken disbelief in her denial, showed that he at least was
convinced of the fact that the Wanderer was not sleeping a natural
sleep. Unorna tried to recall what she had done and said, but all was
vague and indistinct. Of one thing she was sure. She had not laid her
hand upon his forehead, and she had not intentionally done any of those
things which she had always believed necessary for producing the results
of hypnotism. She had not willed him to do anything, she thought and she
felt sure that she had pronounced no words of the nature of a command.
Step by step she tried to reconstruct for her comfort a detailed
recollection of what had passed, but every effort in that direction was
fruitless. Like many men far wiser than herself, she believed in the
mechanics of hypnotic science, in the touches, in the passes, in the
fixed look, in the will to fascinate. More than once Keyork Arabian had
scoffed at what he called her superstitions, and had maintained that
all the varying phenomena of hypnotism, all the witchcr