or the life of me see where I
was wrong."

"You were wrong from beginning to end," he said. "Cannot you see that,
whatever this place is, it is not a sentimental place? It is all this
wretched sentiment that has done the mischief. Come," he added, "I have
an unpleasant task before me, to unmask you to yourself. I don't like
it, but I must do it. Don't make it harder for me."

"Very good," I said, rather angrily too. "But allow me to say this
first. This is a place of muddle. One is worked too hard, and shown too
many things, till one is hopelessly confused. But I had rather have your
criticism first, and then I will make mine."

"Very well!" said Amroth facing me, looking at me fixedly with his blue
eyes, and his nostrils a little distended. "The mischief lies in your
temperament. You are precocious, and you are volatile. You have had
special opportunities, and in a way you have used them well, but your
head has been somewhat turned by your successes. You came to that place
yonder, with Cynthia, with a sense of superiority. You thought yourself
too good for it, and instead of just trying to see into the minds and
hearts of the people you met, you despised them; instead of learning,
you tried to teach. You took a feeble interest in Cynthia, made a pet of
her; then, when I took you away, you forgot all about her. Even the
great things I was allowed to show you did not make you humble. You took
them as a compliment to your powers. And so when you had your chance to
go back to help Cynthia, you thought out no plan, you asked no advice.
You went down in a very self-sufficient mood, expecting that everything
would be easy."

"That is not true," I said. "I was very much perplexed."

"It is only too true," said Amroth; "you enjoyed your perplexity; I
daresay you called it faith to yourself! It was that which made you
weak. You lost your temper with Lucius, you made a miserable fight of
it--and even in prison you could not recognise that you were in fault.
You did better at the trial--I fully admit that you behaved well
there--but the fault is in this, that this girl gave you her heart and
her confidence, and you despised them. Your mind was taken up with other
things; a very little more, and you would be fit for the intellectual
paradise. There," he said, "I have nearly done! You may be angry if you
will, but that is the truth. You have a wrong idea of this place. It is
not plain sailing here. Life here is a very serious,