"But during these last years," he went on, "I have consciously and deliberately turned my back on pain, because it is hideous, because it is a foe to joy, and because I have not and do not now realise its necessity. All I can say is, with Oliver Cromwell, it is just possible I may be mistaken, and in that case I am sure I shall have to--ah, no, be allowed to--learn my mistake. A child crying seems to me a dreadful thing, a beggar by the wayside with a broken tobacco-pipe, and not a penny to get another, the shriek of the rabbit when the stoat's teeth fasten in its throat; they are all dreadful, and enemies to joy. But I am no longer convinced, as I used to be, that pain is unnecessary; I am beginning, as I said, to hold an open mind on the subject, and only say that I believe I can realise myself best and bring myself best into harmony with Nature, with the whole design, by avoiding it. Yet for me also pain and suffering may be necessary. If so, let them come; I am quite ready. I only hope that it will be soon over, that it will be so frightful that I can't stand it. I should prefer that, some blinding, dreadful flash of revelation, to any slow, remorseless grinding of the truth into me. That, however, is not in my hands." Philip's mind had gone back again on to himself. "But how can it possibly be any good that those two should have behaved like this to me?" he cried, speaking directly for the first time. "What monstrous image do you make of the controller of the world and all our destinies, if it is by his will that this is done to me which turns all that may have been good in me into hatred and bitterness? Is that the lesson that I am meant to learn--that those whom one loves best are one's bitterest foes, and will hurt one most?" Tom stopped in his walk and sat down on the edge of the table by Philip. "My dear fellow," he said, "Oliver Cromwell will help us again. Is it not just possible that you too are mistaken when you assume that your trouble was sent you _in order that_ your love might be turned into hate? That it should have happened so may (just possibly again) be in some measure your fault. Could you not have done otherwise, and done better? I don't want to preach, you know." Philip sat silent, but his face hardened again. "If I could have done better, it would not have been I," he said. "It would have been altogether another man." Tom got down off the table. "Ah, you repudiate moral responsibility for your own acts," he said. "Not exactly that. I say that there may be circumstances under which one's will is crumpled up like a piece of waste paper, and one's powers of resistance are paralysed. Don't you believe that?" Merivale shook his head. "No, I don't believe that the power of choice is ever taken away from one while one remains sane," he said. "The moment one cannot choose, the doors of Bedlam are opened." Philip got up.