"Yes."
"You won't let what she may say about me trouble you, will you?"
"What will she say?" he asked with the naïve confidence of absolute and childish faith.
Athalie laughed: "Darling! I don't know. I'm not a witch or a sorceress. Did you think I was?—just because I can see a little more clearly than you?"
"I didn't know what your limit might be," he answered, smiling slightly, in spite of his deep anxiety.
"Then let me inform you at once. My eyes are better than many people's. Also my other self can see. And with so clear a vision, and with intelligence—and with a very true love and reverence for God—somehow I seem to visualise what clairvoyance, logic, and reason combine to depict for me.
"I used to be afraid that a picturesque and vivid imagination coupled with a certain amount of clairvoyance might seduce me to trickery and charlatanism.
"But if it be charlatanism for a paleontologist to construct a fish out of a single fossil scale, then there may be something of that ability in me. For truly, Clive,
I am often at a loss where to draw the line between what I see and what I reason out—between my clairvoyance and my deductions. And if I made mistakes I certainly should be deeply alarmed. But—I don't," she added, laughing. "And so, in regard to those two men last night, and in regard to what she and they may be about, I feel not the least concern. And you must not. Promise me, dear."
But he rose, anxious and depressed, and stood silent for a few moments, her hands clasped tightly in his.