ht my battles. You
have so much else to do in the world."

"I have nothing better to do," he responded, with a lover's glance.
"Nothing can interest me so profoundly; nothing will give me greater
pleasure."

She went on, fervently: "I can't tell you how you comfort me. When you
are near me I have no fear of anything; but you oughtn't to give up
your work to treat me. We can never pay you for what you've already
done for us."

"Don't try, and pray don't exaggerate my sacrifices. You must remember
I am an investigator, and you--are a most absorbing problem." She drew
away from him slightly, and he returned to a more serious tone. "The
influence of mind over mind is the present, or at least the coming,
problem, and you have opened a new world to me. The question of your
future, your cure, absorbs me, and while I am by no means a rich man,
as money runs these days, I am quite able to follow out any line of
investigation which may interest me."

Her face clouded, "I wish I didn't have to be investigated."

"So do I, and that brings up something which I must say, even at the
risk of seeming hard and cruel. If you wish to live your full, free
life, you must cut yourself off from _all_ of your old associations.
Clarke and Pratt have passed out of your life, but your mother--" He
paused abruptly. When he resumed his tone was almost pleading: "You
have said that you trusted me, that you wished for my help. Did you
mean it?"

"I did, indeed I did!"

"Very well, then," he went on, "I will speak my mind. I must be very
candid, even if I seem harsh. When I say you must cut yourself off
from all the associations of the past, I mean your mother also."

She started up in dismay, understanding his full meaning at last. "Oh
no, not that!"

"Yes, just that, and finally that. She is your mother, and you love
her; but you are a human soul as well as she, with a right to healthy,
normal life. It is contrary to the law of progress to sacrifice the
young to the old. Your mother's comfort has been your undoing, and I
cannot for an instant agree to your submission of this question to
her. You must assert your right to yourself, and she must surrender
her authority to me, and she must leave you for a time. I would say
this even if my own mother spoke to me through you. Your struggles
tear my heart, and your mother's presence only prolongs your
sufferings."

"You must not blame her," she loyally insisted. "I am to blame. My
guides te