“To what will you drive me?” she said at last.
“I will not go too far. I should lose my power over you if I did. I prefer to keep it.”
“Inexorable man!”
“Yes.”
Another despairing pause.
“What am I to do?”
“Nothing. But keep yourself ready to carry out any plan that I may propose. Something will turn up, now that I have got into the house myself. Leave me to find out the means. I can expect no invention from your brains. You can go home.”
Euphra turned without another word, and went; murmuring, as if in excuse to herself:
“It is for my freedom. It is for my freedom.”
Of course this account must have come originally from Euphra herself, for there was no one else to tell it. She, at least, believed herself compelled to do what the man pleased. Some of my readers will put her down as insane. She may have been; but, for my part, I believe there is such a power of one being over another, though perhaps only in a rare contact of psychologically peculiar natures. I have testimony enough for that. She had yielded to his will once. Had she not done so, he could not have compelled her; but, having once yielded, she had not strength sufficient to free herself again. Whether even he could free her, further than by merely abstaining from the exercise of the power he had gained, I doubt much.