"Then shake," he cried. "We'll go through--to the end!" "To the end," she echoed, as she seized his outstretched hand. Then the tension snapped suddenly. "How absurd," she laughed. "We're behaving like pirates in a melodrama. Let's go in the other room and be rational people." But Good did not even attempt to smile. CHAPTER VI DEAD IDOLS Arnold Imrie was of clear Scotch descent. And among his forebears had been those grim Covenanters to whom compromise was anathema. He had a strong body and a strong intellect, but stronger than both combined was the resistless overlord he called his conscience. Sydney Smith's aspersions upon the impenetrability of the Scotch skull are well known, though their justice may be questioned. But it is indisputable that nothing short of the heroic measures he recommended would suffice to separate Imrie from a resolve, once firmly made. Being human, he saw many things dimly, and some quite falsely. But as he saw he lived, and there was no power in the earth or out of it to make him evade or equivocate. Sometimes this sturdy candour made him noble: sometimes it made him tiresome: and once in a way it merely made him ridiculous. But though for long periods it might remain dormant, it was none the less the prime impetus in his life. Judith's derision, her more or less obvious contempt, had wounded him more than he would have believed possible; and her touch, though light, had found spots that were sorer than he had suspected. Her calm disdain was like an acid, dissolving away the crust of unimportant occupation and meticulous conformity which had protected his ideals from the corruptive action of reality. He shivered, figuratively, at the revelation. One of her mordant phrases was poignantly clear. Again and again it recurred to him, always with a question attached. He tried to dismiss it, and could not. She had called him "too much of a clergyman--not enough of a man." As he walked home, he analysed its meaning, and tried to disguise it in sophistries. But the intellectual honesty which was his at base, forbade. The meaning was far too manifest. And at intervals through the week, he strove to force his thoughts into an effective answer. But always there was failure at the end. Of course such charges as she had made to him were not new. The literature of the day was full of them. But hitherto he had been able to keep his defences intact. When his own logic failed him, there was always the logic of his schooling and of his contemporaries upon which to fall back. But for such heresies to spring from Judith--that was treachery within the gates. He resented it bitterly, and he was appalled as the weapons so strong in the past now crumpled in his hands. A whisper grew louder and louder in his soul, a question sounded more and more relentlessly. And when it would brook no more delay, reluctantly, sick at heart, and filled with fear at the outcome, he hauled down his flag of truce and gave the devil battle.