"'There's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.' Did you ever hear that before? 'Everybody knows,' forsooth! Oh, Philia, how can you be so blind! Surely it's perfectly obvious that it would be the one and only right course. As far as honour goes I should have no choice. Don't you believe it's necessarily wicked to kill one's self. Sometimes the weak--the cowardly--the really despicable thing to do is to cling to life. Oh, I'm beginning to hate myself--I'm being dragged through the mud and grimed almost beyond my own recognition. There, don't look at me like that. But you mustn't think I'm so infamous as to be planning to use Geoff's blind love--his noble, unquestioning trust in me--as the very means by which to fetter him in bonds that would remain unbreakable, even though they might suddenly become repulsive to him. It is because power lies in these hands of mine--soft and slender though they are--see them," and as she held them out and eyed them askance, they shook like aspen leaves. "It is because I can cut asunder all earthly ties between us, and set him free, that I dare expose him to the risk. It's no use, Philia. I can't love in a sane, temperate, moderate sort of manner--I can't do it, I tell you! I love Geoff so much more than myself--so infinitely much more--that life or death for me seems scarcely worth a thought." No words came to the old woman; not even Shakespeare was able to suggest to her any comfort for this trembling girl, gliding so swiftly and surely into deceit and sin. "I needn't have told you of what I intend to do in the event of Morris's betraying me after my marriage, though I shall tell him," Evarne went on; "but I--I--couldn't bear that you should misjudge me, dear. It would be dreadful to me to think that you believed I was merely planning all this from an unscrupulous desire to make my own position secure at all costs." "As if I'd think anything of the sort!" "Well, if you did, I for one couldn't blame you. I know it must look like it. Oh, Philia, I'm miserable at what I'm doing," Evarne cried, knitting her white brow. "If anyone had told me a week ago that I should sink to deliberate scheming to make Geoff marry me quickly, and that I was seriously proposing to watch his correspondence, I should--there, I am mad, perhaps! I could almost wish to believe it. There is no truth, no honour in me! Oh, Philia, Philia, how I hope my dead father cannot see what I am doing!" She shuddered, and buried her face convulsively in her friend's lap. The old woman, full of pity, passed her hand over the thick locks. "Make up yer mind once and for all, my pet. Think about it well. Don't go and do what yer will be sorry for." The head was lifted immediately, defiantly. "Oh, I know what I am going to do. I have done with thinking. I am going to marry Geoff." "But 'ow are yer goin' to work the trick, so sudden like, without 'im wonderin' what's in yer mind?"