Page:Bridefrombush00horn.pdf/176

170 entirely the impulse of events. But neither longing was at present anything more than a longing; no purpose showed through either yet. The reality of Alfred's love, the feeling that it would kill him to lose her, was accountable for this. Gladys's resolution was, so far, a blank tablet, not because purpose was absent, but because it was not yet become visible.

A rough analogy may be borrowed from the sensitive film used for the production of a photographic negative. The impression is taken, yet the film remains blank as it was before, until the proper acid is applied, when the impression becomes visible.

Now, a moral acid, acting upon that blank tablet of the mind, would produce a precisely similar effect. Suppose Gladys became convinced that Alfred would be a happier man without her, that it would be even a relief to him to lose her: this would supply the moral acid.

The effect of this moral acid would coincide with that of the photographer's acid. In either case something that had been