Morris listened more or less patiently to her dear little sermons, and with difficulty resisted stopping her pretty lips with kisses. But she was very much on her dignity that night, so assuring her that she was nothing more than a sweet, refreshing baby, he merely delivered a sermon on his own account, with a very different text. That night the influence of the day's high meditation rendered her proof against his sophistries, but as time passed their steady reiteration began to make headway. Morris unswervingly bent all his powers to gain control of the situation. The sport amused him. He had nothing to distract his attention, and the prize was so well worth the winning that time and trouble were as nothing. He attempted no sudden decisive _coup_, feeling greater confidence in the weapons of gentle argument and persuasion, patience and a discreet mingling of ardour and forbearance. CHAPTER VI A SOUL'S BATTLE Evarne grew steadily more troubled--more unhappy--more shaken in her once firm convictions. Up to the present, save in a few unconsidered trifles, she had always obeyed the dictates of her conscience. Now this prop failed her; indeed, she seemed to have two opposing consciences, each struggling for supremacy. While one inward voice would desperately recall the existence of Mrs. Kenyon, the other would reply by scornfully declaring that it was but selfishness, cowardice, calculating prudence and cold lack of trust, that clutched hold of the vision of the distant invalid whose finger bore the only wedding ring that Morris could give, and that these contemptible qualities used the wife but as a moral shield behind which to conceal their own mean, hideous forms. There was no breaking up of a previously happy home involved, no ruthless destroying of another woman's peace of mind; while beyond a doubt she was depriving the man she professed to love--and to whom she owed everything--of the only return she could make for all his kindness and devoted affection. Obviously this spiritual civil war could not forever consist of drawn battles between the rival forces. Ere long even her own self-respect--the chief bulwark of the defending army--trembling beneath resistless attacks, was on the verge of capitulation. True, she might have fled from "Mon Bijou," but convinced of Morris's engrossing love, she could not do this without likening herself to the snake of the fable, who, warmed back to life in its rescuer's bosom, then turned and stung him. But unless she thus left Morris desolate, and cast herself helpless and penniless upon the world, she was forced to continue to accept everything--mere food and raiment, let alone luxury--at his hands, and above all to receive daily and hourly that care and devotion that can only be repaid in coin of the same nature. He so obviously delighted in giving; was she, for her part, empty of all sense of gratitude, of all generosity?