else’s work.  I completed it with all sorts of new illustrations, confirmations, which had been hanging loose in my memory, and the result was that I one day found myself talking about it as if it had originated with me.  If I’m not mistaken, I was talking with Dymchurch—­yes, it was Dymchurch.  When I had time to reflect, I saw what I had unconsciously done quite unconsciously, believe me.  I thought it over, Ought I to let Dymchurch know where I had got my central idea?  And I decided at length that I would say nothing.”

Constance, leaning back in her chair, listened attentively, with impartial countenance.

“You see why, don’t you?” His voice thrilled with earnestness; his eyes shone as if with the very light of truth.  “To say calmly:  By the bye, I came across that bio-sociological theory in such and such a book, would have been a flagrant injustice to myself.  I couldn’t ask Dymchurch to listen whilst I elaborately expounded my mental and spiritual history during the past year or two, yet short of that there was no way of making him understand the situation.  The thing had become mine; I thought by it, and lived by it; I couldn’t bear to speak of it as merely an interesting hypothesis discovered in the course of my reading.  At once it would have seemed to me to carry less weight; I should have been thrown back again into uncertainty.  This, too, just at the moment when a principle, a conviction, had become no less a practical than a subjective need to me; for—­ thanks to you—­I saw a new hope in life, the possibility of an active career which would give scope to all my energies.  Do you follow me?  Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” replied Constance, with a slight inclination of her head.  She seemed both to listen and to be absorbed in thought.

“From that moment, I ceased to think of the book.  I had as good as forgotten its existence.  Though, on the whole, it had done me so great a service, there were many things in it I didn’t like, and these would now have annoyed me much more than at the first reading.  I should have felt as if the man had got hold of my philosophy, and presented it imperfectly.  You will understand now why I was so astonished at your charge of plagiarism.  I really didn’t know what to say; I couldn’t perceive your point of view:  I don’t remember how I replied, I’m afraid my behaviour seemed only to confirm your suspicion.  In very truth, it was the result of genuine surprise.  Of course I had only to reflect to see how this discovery must have come upon you, but then it was too late.  We were in the thick of extraordinary complications:  no hope of quiet and reasonable talk.  Since the tragic end, I have worried constantly about that misunderstanding.  Is it quite cleared up?  We must be frank with each other now or never.  Speak your thought as honestly as I have spoken mine.”

“I completely understand you,” was the meditative reply.