y
illogical, auntie," he replied. "But you never can see the connection
between cause and effect. That was the reason I couldn't explain why I
didn't want you to go, even before I locked you up. It wouldn't have
been any use. You'd have simply laughed in my face, and have gone to
London all the same."

"I don't know what you mean. Don't beat about the bush, Austin, and
worry my head with all this vague talk about cause and effect and such
like. What has my being illogical got to do with it?"

"Well--if you want me to explain, of course I'll do so; but I don't
suppose it'll make any difference," said Austin. "Some time ago, I
told you that just as I was going to get over a stile, I felt
something push me back, and so I came home another way. You'll
recollect that if I _had_ got over that stile I should have come
across a rabid dog where there was no possibility of escape, and no
doubt have got frightfully bitten. But when I told you how I was
prevented, you scoffed at the whole story, and said that I was
superstitious.--Stop a minute! I haven't finished yet.--Then, only
the other day, my life was saved from all those bricks tumbling on me
when I was asleep by just the same sort of interposition. Again you
jeered at me, and when I told you I had heard raps in the wall you
ridiculed the idea, and--do you remember?--the words were scarcely out
of your mouth when you heard the raps yourself, and then you got
nearly beside yourself with fright and anger, and said it was the
devil. And now for the third time the same sort of thing has happened.
What is the good of telling you about it? You'd only scoff and jeer as
you did before, although on this occasion it is your own life that has
been saved, not mine."

Certainly Master Austin was having his revenge on Aunt Charlotte for
the torrent of abuse she had poured upon him a few minutes previously.
For a short time she sat quite still, the picture of perplexity and
irritation. The facts as Austin stated them were incontrovertible, and
yet--probably because she lacked the instinct of causality--she could
not accept his explanation of them. There are some people in the world
who are constituted like this. They create a mental atmosphere around
them which is as impenetrable to conviction in certain matters as a
brick wall is to a parched pea. They will fall back on any loophole
of a theory, however imbecile and far-fetched, rather than accept some
simple and self-evident solution