"It's killed lots of my people, or landed them in asylums—they're not talked about in the family, but I know it," he raved.
"Well, I think you're a perfect idiot," she cried impatiently. "Why, if you saw about twenty people on this ship walk overboard in a procession, that's no reason why you should do it too, is it?"
"That just shows you don't understand the power of suggestion," he said. "At the hospital—I'll never forget it. There was a girl brought in dying of burns. We got it from her that she was very unhappy and had set herself on fire because the woman next door had been burnt to death. Old Professor Hay, our lecturer in psychology, explained it to us. He said the girl was in a weak state of nerves and health generally, owing to family troubles she'd had to shoulder. She was receptive to suggestion, you see. And she was too tired to think logically. Seeing the burnt woman there very peaceful, and people sorry for her—don't you see?"
Marcella nodded.
"I'm pretty sure I'd never have got to this state of things if I'd never known it was in the family. It seems inevitable, as if I'm working out a laid-down law."
"Louis, I'm not very clever. As I told you, father used to call me a double-distilled idiot when he got in a temper. But I do think you're wrong. People are not a part of families nearly so much as they are themselves. Besides—imagine letting anything get you down, and put chains on you like that!" she added scornfully.
"You don't know what you're talking about," he said bitterly. "It simply chews you up, gnaws holes in you."
She thought of what Dr. Angus had said.
"Well then, patch yourself up and go on again."
"But after all, why should you? There's nobody cares tuppence now what happens to me. I'm an outcast."