"Then don't prose. You really are straining at gnats and swallowing camels, Volumnia. Well--where was I? ... Oh yes, the Studio! The voice went on--and now this _does_ show that it didn't come out of my own head--'I remember the Studio, and I remember a misunderstanding between yourself and your husband that might easily have led to serious consequences.' Now you know, Volumnia, that could _not_ have come out of my own--my own inner consciousness.... Is that right?--Now _could_ it?" Miss Volumnia shook an unbiassed head, on its guard against rash conclusions. "The same is true," she said, "of so many dream-impressions. Did you make the photograph acquainted with the actual position of things?" Mrs. Aiken seemed to hesitate a moment. "Was I bound to take it into my confidence?" she said. "Anyhow it seemed to me at the time most uncalled for." "What did you say?" "I said--because as it was only a photograph I thought it didn't matter--I said that fortunately no such result had come about. I then pressed it to say more explicitly what it was referring to.... What?" "Nothing--go on.... Well, I was only going to say that in my opinion you were playing with edged tools. The slightest departure from the principle of speaking the Truth is fraught with danger to the speaker.... Yes--and then?" "Well--_did_ it matter? Anyhow, let me get on. I asked what it meant--what misunderstanding it referred to. And do you know, Volumnia, the voice began and gave a _most accurate_ account of Miss What's-her-name--Pupsley Wupsley's--visit to the Studio, and described that poor young Captain Thingumbob _most accurately_. All I can say is that it did not make a single mistake...." "Of course not!" "Why 'of course not'?" "Because it was merely your own Memory unconsciously at work; doing the job on its own, as my young nephew would say. It may have been wrong, but would seem to you right." "Then why doesn't what followed after I left the Studio seem to me right too?" Miss Volumnia said, as from the seat of Judgment, "Let's hear it." Thereupon her friend gave, with conscientious effort to report truly, the photograph's version of what passed in the Studio between her husband and the odious Sairah. It corresponded closely with that already given in this story.