He was once more the divine
master, whose godlike features bore no trace of malice and who had
raised him to a place very near his heart.
"No," he cried, "it is impossible. It's all a dream, a horrible
nightmare."
"But he has himself confessed it," she interjected.
"Perhaps he has spoken in symbols. We all absorb to some extent other
men's ideas, without robbing them and wrecking their thought-life.
Reginald may be unscrupulous in the use of his power of impressing upon
others the stamp of his master-mind. So was Shakespeare. No, no, no!
You are mistaken; we were both deluded for the moment by his picturesque
account of a common, not even a discreditable, fact. He may himself have
played with the idea, but surely he cannot have been serious."
"And your own experience, and Abel Felton's and mine--can they, too, be
dismissed with a shrug of the shoulder?"
"But, come to think of it, the whole theory seems absurd. It is
unscientific. It is not even a case of mesmerism. If he had said that he
hypnotised his victims, the matter would assume a totally different
aspect.
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