"It's doubtful. In one way yes, because you did things by halves—went out of her life and then came back into it at the wrong moment. I won't stop to point out the probable course of events if you had kept away altogether; that might not be fair to you perhaps, though I marvel you missed the lesson and have forgotten the punishment so soon. Coming back to her, ghost-haunted as she was, you did make her happier, for you lifted the horror of fear and superstition from her. But now her lasting content is the theme. How does your presence here contribute to that?"
"It would very considerably if Stapledon was different."
"Or if he was dead—or if—a thousand 'ifs.' But Stapledon is Stapledon. So what are you going to do with the advice I've given you?"
"Not use it, I assure you. Consider what it means to drive me away from Godleigh!"
"For her lasting content."
"I don't know about that. Of course, if it could be proved."
"You do know; and it has been proved."
"Not to my satisfaction. I resent your putting me in a separate compartment, as if I was a new sort of beast or a quaint hybrid. I'm a very ordinary man—not a phenomenon—and there are plenty more people in the world who think and act as I do."
"Go and join them, then," said Mr. Endicott, "for your own peace of mind and hers. Get out of her life; and remember that there's only one way—that leading from here. I'm sorry for you, but you'll live to know I've spoken the truth, unless your conscience was forgotten, too, when the Lord fashioned you."
Yeoland grumbled a little; then he brightened up.