They sat side by side on papa's faded old lounge, where they had spent many an hour together in happier days. Canning held Carlisle's hand in a reassuring grasp. Her heart warmed to him anew: if he did not quite seem to understand--what wonder when she hardly did herself?--his was a love that drew its roots deeper than understanding. Nevertheless she flinched from a discussion which promised to be carried on chiefly by her over-strung nerves; and all at once she felt that she must know instantly what threatened, exactly what he thought about it. "Hugo ... do you--don't you think I--I ought to tell?" Far readier and surer was his voice in reply: "Frankly, darling, I can't as yet see any necessity." How could he possibly see?--Ought to tell what? Had not her mother told him that he had to deal with the nightmare illusions of a disordered mind?... Canning added with great considerateness: "I've thought it all over from every point of view--and you know I'm better able to think dispassionately to-day than you are--and I simply can't persuade myself that we have any such obligation." Carlisle thought, with a little hopeful leap, that Hugo _must_ know. It was all irrevocably settled; and yet at the same time it may have been that, woman-wise, she had left ajar a little door somewhere, through which his man's wisdom might yet storm, and possess all.... "But--but doesn't it seem that if I--did him a wrong, I ought to be willing to set it straight?" "Well, naturally!" said Canning, and smiled a little, sadly, to see how white and sorrowful-eyed she looked. "If you did him a wrong. But that's just the point. I'm afraid I can't agree with the somewhat extreme view this friend of the poor fellow's seems to have put forward.... By the way," he added, finding the natural question popping in so suitably here, "who is this man that has talked with you about it, Carlisle? Your mother didn't go into particulars." Carlisle felt some surprise. "Oh--I supposed she told you. Dr. Vivian--you remember--who ..." The name took Canning completely aback. "Vivian?--no!... _That_ chap!..." Both remembered in the same moment his quizzical complaint that this man was his hoodoo. Both felt that the pleasantry had a somewhat gritty flavor just now. "I hadn't thought of him," said Canning, at once putting down his surprise and explaining it, "because I didn't think you knew him at all. In fact, I didn't know you'd ever seen him but once, or perhaps twice...." Carlisle regretted that mamma had not explained all this. "I haven't more than three or four times.... Twice when I was with you, you remember, and then I met him again at Mr. Beirne's and the Cooneys'--some cousins of mine. You see--he was a great friend of--his...." "And I suppose he has worried you about this every time he got anywhere near you?"