"I beg pardon, my lady, but there is one thing. Dr. Haddon's system is based on influence. It does not allow any appeal to--ahem--to the moral sense. Therefore, if your ladyship could kindly treat the mistake of yesterday with silence, it would be better--for the system. Dr. Haddon ignores failure on principle, it--it is part of the system; and any interference may be dangerous. Therefore, if your ladyship--" "I quite understand. You can go." When she was left alone, she sate staring on at the door he had closed behind him. Behind whom? why the man who--oh! it was an impossible, an incredible, position! She had married her husband without caring for him, but she had married him also because she intended that he _should_ care for her. And now! What was he but a puppet, dependent on this man? She had not married Edward Wilson, but Wilson-cum-Haddon, -cum-Hooper. And Eustace knew it! Her husband, the possible father of her children! She had known all along that he was a weak man, but that the very possibility of his living decently lay in the will of another was hopeless, horrible degradation. She had often in society talked lightly of the part hypnotism was to play in the future regeneration of the world; but now that even a suspicion of it touched her inner life, it left her in wild revolt. When all was said and done, that man to whom they paid so many pounds a year was master of her fate. It should never be! Better, far better, that her husband should be drunk; and yet what right had she to interfere? "It will be too late to make milady _charmante_," suggested Josephine, coming in, reproachfully. She stood up hastily with clenched hands. Eustace should not see her degradation--she would show him-- "There is plenty of time," she said coldly. "Put on my diamonds, Josephine--that dress is dull. They can wait if I am not ready." She was worth waiting for, and Mr. Wilson's weak face brightened as she went up to him with easy grace. "Did you have a good day, Edward? I saw Hooper for a moment, but I forgot to ask him about the sport." She failed in her object for all her bravado. The eyes she sought to blind saw too clearly. "So Louisa comes to-morrow," she said lightly, as, after keeping all the men, her husband included, at her feet during the evening, she rose to say good-night and let her hand linger purposely in her cousin's, so that he should see she did not care, that she was not afraid. "No!" he replied coldly; "I've had another wire. She came as far as Portree, and, hearing that the gathering is next week, decided to stay and show off her new dresses. She got about a ton of them in Paris if you remember, and women, even the best of them, love to show off." His tone roused her to reckless resentment by its assumption of knowledge and condemnation. "He does not look very sorry for his wife's decision, does he, professor?" she asked with a laugh. "My dear lady, how could he be sorry for anything, in his present position?"