"Lady Gwendolen, you don't understand the nature of an hypothesis"—his absurdity gets the upper hand again—"the nature of an hypothesis is that its maker is always in the right. I am, this time. If I had been nursed round at the Mackworth Clarkes', you would have known nothing about me except as a mere accident—a person in the papers—a person one inquires after...."
Gwen interrupts him with determination. "Stop, Mr. Torrens," she says, "and listen to me. If you had been struck by a bullet fired by my father's order, by his servant, on his land, it would not have mattered what house you were taken to, nor who nursed you round. I should have felt that the guilt—yes, the guilt!—the sin of it was on the conscience of us all; every one of us that had had a hand, a finger, in it, directly or indirectly. How could I have borne to look your sister in the face...?"
"You wouldn't have known her! Come, Lady Gwen!"
"Very well, then, give her up. Suppose, instead, the girl you are engaged to had been a friend of mine, how could I have borne to look her in the face?"
"She's a hypothesis. There's no such interesting damsel—that I know of...."
"Oh, isn't there?... Well—she's a hypothesis, and I've a right to as many hypothesisses as you have."
"I can't deny it."
"Then how should I look her in the face? Answer my question, and don't prevaricate."
"What a severe—Turk you are! But I won't prevaricate. You wouldn't be called on to look the hypothesis in the face. She would have broken me off, like a sensible hypothesis that knew what was due to itself and its family...."
"Do be serious. Indeed I am serious. It was in my mind all last night—such a dreadful haunting thought!—what would this girl's feelings be to me and mine? I made several girls I know stand for the part. You know how one overdoes things when one is left to oneself and the darkness?..."