Yet Mary was of a nature the reverse of weak; but it happened that Catherine, like some others who have lived her life of stern self-denial, of passionate and maddening thought, through many long silent hours of concentration on one great object, had developed a sort of mesmeric power over her fellow-beings.
The will of the girl was paralysed in the presence of that other mightier will, and became as weak as water. This influence became stronger daily, as the two women saw more of each other—as their spirits entered into closer communion.
Sometimes after a long afternoon's earnest discussion on the one topic, in the mystic between-lights, a strange feeling would steal over Mary. It was as if her soul had gone out of her, as if she was but a body having sensation only. Hearing the low, monotonous words as they fell from her mistress's lips, but not understanding them, her soul, her will, seemed to be away—to be in Catherine, to be for the time with the other's mind, receiving its impressions, echoing its workings—to return to her again when the spell was over; but different from what it had been, modified by that strange visit, and having brought with it a portion of that other's nature, a portion which was to cleave to it for ever.
Catherine herself was not conscious of this power at first, but when she discovered it she did not fail to make use of it, and to employ all methods to increase the fascination.
She herself returned to a great extent the girl's affection; she became, to her own surprise, greatly attached to her, fonder of her than she had ever been of any other human creature.
Alas! it was no happy outlook for the ill-fated girl that her will should become the helpless slave of the will of a dangerous mad woman.
No other woman could have persuaded the child against her instincts that there was no God, no good—not that she had known much of either in her short life.
Such was the education for which Mary was indebted to her new friend, one that, coming after her Brixton bringing-up, well tended to develop a strange character—unwomanly, unnatural. She had never known a mother's love, never had a doll when a child, or a dream of a hero when a girl.
Very skilful and cunning was the method employed by the Chief of the Secret Society in the training of her pupil. She did not too precipitately disclose to her the more startling doctrines of her creed. Step by step she prepared her mind.
Thus one day, after Mary had been more than a year with her, the Malthusian doctrine was the subject of a long conversation between the woman and the girl.