ne or conscience, it's all one, once it begins to raise
a ruction. But about Brenton: how do you diagnose his disease?"

Whittenden's reply came on the instant.

"Trying to believe too many things too hard."

"Hm!" Opdyke appeared to be considering. "Well, I think perhaps you've
hit it. However, there are some extenuating circumstances. Give a man a
dozen years or so of the mental starvation of a New England wilderness,
and then all at once fill him chock full of new ideas, and he gets a
pain within him, just as painful a pain as if it were in his tummy, not
his mind. In time, it leads to chronic indigestion. That's what
Brenton's got."

"Yes; but that is cause, not extenuating circumstance," Whittenden
objected.

"It's extenuating, just the same. And then the wife! She is--"

"Well?"

"A pill," Reed said briefly.

"What sort?"

"Born common and dense. Grown self-centred and conceited. Lately turned
from ultra-ritualistic to incipient Eddyism."

"That's bad."

"Isn't it? No wonder Brenton's down and out, for the time being. The
question is how we are to prevent its becoming chronic. Of course, this
is the bare outline; you can fill in the details out of your own
experience."

"Praise heaven, I haven't any!" Whittenden responded piously.

"So much the better for you, and so very much the worse for Brenton. I
had counted on your being here to haul him out of his present mental
Turkish bath, and hang him out on the line in the fresh air and sun. I
can't." Reed made an expressive grimace at the couch. "Besides, I'm a
little bit like old Knut on the seashore; my own toes are getting very
wet. The worst of that matter is that Brenton knows it."

Whittenden spoke tranquilly, his eyes on Opdyke's face, sure that he
could rely upon the sense of humour in his friend.

"Yes, Brenton does know it. Do you realize, Opdyke, that you're the
fellow who heated up his Turkish bath, in the first place?"

"What!" The word exploded with a violence that brought Ramsdell's head
in at the open doorway.

"Yes, you."

Opdyke smiled at Ramsdell, in token of dismissal. Then,--

"Not guilty!" he protested.

"Yes, you are. I wormed it out of Brenton, in the end, in spite of his
growling. It's too bad of me to tell you; and yet it seems only fair
that you should get at the truth of the situation. Besides--You know
you are a fearful egoist, Reed; we all are, for that matter. Besides,
it may make you a little bit more tolerant