He shook his head sadly and said:  “You seek to impose your ideas on others, ostracizing those who reject them.  Believe me, mankind has been doing nothing else ever since it began to pay some attention to ideas.  It has been said that a benevolent despotism is the best possible form of government.  I do not believe that saying, because I believe another one to the effect that hell is paved with benevolence, which most people, the proverb being too deep for them, misinterpret as unfulfilled intentions.  As if a benevolent despot might not by any error of judgment destroy his kingdom, and then say, like Romeo when he got his friend killed, ‘I thought all for the best!’ Excuse my rambling.  I meant to say, in short, that though you are benevolent and judicious you are none the less a despot.”

Miss Wilson, at a loss for a reply, regretted that she had not, before letting him gain so far on her, dismissed him summarily instead of tolerating a discussion which she did not know how to end with dignity.  He relieved her by adding unexpectedly: 

“Your system was the cause of my absurd marriage.  My wife acquired a degree of culture and reasonableness from her training here which made her seem a superior being among the chatterers who form the female seasoning in ordinary society.  I admired her dark eyes, and was only too glad to seize the excuse her education offered me for believing her a match for me in mind as well as in body.”

Miss Wilson, astonished, determined to tell him coldly that her time was valuable.  But curiosity took possession of her in the act of utterance, and the words that came were, “Who was she?”

“Henrietta Jansenius.  She is Henrietta Trefusis, and I am Sidney Trefusis, at your mercy.  I see I have aroused your compassion at last.”

“Nonsense!” said Miss Wilson hastily; for her surprise was indeed tinged by a feeling that he was thrown away on Henrietta.

“I ran away from her and adopted this retreat and this disguise in order to avoid her.  The usual rebuke to human forethought followed.  I ran straight into her arms—­or rather she ran into mine.  You remember the scene, and were probably puzzled by it.”

“You seem to think your marriage contract a very light matter, Mr. Trefusis.  May I ask whose fault was the separation?  Hers, of course.”

“I have nothing to reproach her with.  I expected to find her temper hasty, but it was not so—­her behavior was unexceptionable.  So was mine.  Our bliss was perfect, but unfortunately, I was not made for domestic bliss—­at all events I could not endure it—­so I fled, and when she caught me again I could give no excuse for my flight, though I made it clear to her that I would not resume our connubial relations just yet.  We parted on bad terms.  I fully intended to write her a sweet letter to make her forgive me in spite of herself, but somehow the weeks have slipped away and I am still fully intending.  She has never written, and I have never written.  This is a pretty state of things, isn’t it, Miss Wilson, after all her advantages under the influence of moral force and the movement for the higher education of women?”