If this opportunity presented itself, would the love for her brother or for her husband carry her away?  If she questioned him, what would he not say?

For the first time he asked himself if he had done right to marry, and if, on the contrary, he had not committed a mad imprudence in introducing a woman into a life so tormented as his.  He had asked calmness from this woman, and now she brought him terror.

To tell the truth, she was dangerous only at night; and if he found a way to occupy another room he would have nothing to fear from her during the day, on condition that he held himself rigorously on the defensive.  Loving him as she did, she would resist the curiosity that drew her; if uneasiness drove her, her love would restrain her, as she herself had said; little by little this uneasiness and curiosity, being no longer excited, would die out, and they would again enjoy the sweet days that followed their marriage.

But in the present circumstances this way was difficult to find, for to propose another room to Phillis would be equal to telling her that he was afraid of her, and consequently it would give her a new mystery to study.  He reflected, and starting with the idea that the proposition of two rooms must come from Phillis, he arranged a plan which, it seemed to him, would accomplish what he wished.

Ignorant of the fact that she had been hypnotized, and not remembering that she had talked, without doubt Phillis still feared that he would hypnotize her; he would threaten it again, and surely she would find a way to defend herself and escape from him.

This is what happened.  The next day, when he told her decidedly that he wished to put her to sleep in order that he might learn what troubled her, she showed the same fright as on the first time.

“All that you have asked of me, everything that you have desired, I have wished as you and with you; but I will never consent to this.”

“Your resistance is absurd; I will not yield to it.”

“You shall not put me to sleep against my will.”

“Easily.”

“It is not possible.”

Without replying, he took a book from the library, and turning over the leaves, he read:  “Is it possible to make a sleeping person, without awaking him, pass from the natural to the hypnotic sleep?  The thing is possible, at least with certain subjects.”

Then handing her the book: 

“You see that to put you to sleep artificially I need only the opportunity of finding you sleeping naturally.  It is very simple.”

“That would be odious.”

“Those are merely words.”

He threw her into such a state of terror that she kept awake all night, and as he would not sleep for fear of talking, he felt that she exerted every faculty to keep awake.  But had he not gone too far?  And by this threat would he not drive her to some desperate act?  If she should escape, if she deserted him—­what would become of him without her?  Was she not his whole life?  But he reassured himself by saying that she loved him too much ever to consent to a separation.  Without doubt, she herself would come to think as he wished her to think.