So he was arguing the case for postponement of discussion once more, with excellent good sense and an even more moving insistence.... If he had now but ceased his argument, turned, gathered her to his arms, and adjured her by his overflowing love to entrust herself to him, it is possible that within two minutes he might have had her weeping on his breast, in complete surrender. Body and soul, she was sore with much pounding: more than an hour ago, she needed sympathy and comfort now, loverly occupation of the desolating lonely places within her. But Canning argued, seeing nothing else to do, argued with a deepening note of patience in his voice. And when he stopped at length, it was natural that she should argue back: though she really meant this for her last attempt to convey the dim light that was in her. "I hate to seem so silly and obstinate, Hugo. I--I can't seem to explain it exactly. But I really don't think that waiting would make any difference--in my feeling. And don't you think, if I feel I ... couldn't be happy till I--got this off my mind...." Again he explained that this feeling was but a passing illusion, here to-day, gone to-morrow. Carlisle hesitated. But Canning, seeing only silence for his pains, said with a little quickening of his tone: "Tell me, my dear! Honestly, would such a thought as that--about your happiness--ever have occurred to you if it hadn't been suggested to you by Dr. Vivian?" Natural as the inquiry was to Canning, it jangled oddly upon Carlisle. She could not understand Hugo's recurrence to this man; it seemed curiously unreasonable, quite unlike him and somehow quite unjust.... "Why, I don't know, Hugo. I--I seem to have had it on my mind a good deal lately. Perhaps he first made me think of it that way--I don't know." "Don't you think perhaps we might have understood each other a little better all along, if you had talked it over with me before you talked to him about it?" "Yes, I do now. I didn't seem to think.... It all happened so unexpectedly--I never planned anything at all. And then I thought--I hoped--you would think I was doing right." "My dear girl, nobody in his senses could possibly think you were doing right, and nobody who cared for you could want you to abandon yourself to the impulses of a moment of nervous hysteria."