"I have told him he must give Cuckoo up," he said, almost in a snarl.
The doctor glanced at him quickly.
"You have told him?"
"Advised him, I mean."
"You dislike her?"
"I! No. How can one dislike a painted rag? How can one dislike a pink and
white shell that holds nothing?"
"Every body holds a soul. Every human shell holds its murmur of the great
sea."
"The body of Cuckoo then contains a soul that's cankered with disease,
moth-eaten with corruption, worn away to an atom not bigger than a grain
of dust. I would not call it a soul at all."
He spoke with more than a shade of excitement, and the gay expression of
his face had changed to an uneasy anger. The doctor observed it, and
rejoined quietly:
"How can you answer for another person's soul? We see the body, it is
true. But are we to divine the soul from that--wholly and solely?"
"The soul! Let us call it the will."
"Why?"
"The will of man is the soul of man. It is possible to judge the will
by the body. The will of such a woman as Cuckoo Bright is a negative
quantity. Her body is the word 'weakness,' written in flesh and blood
for all to read."
"Ah, you speak of her will for herself," the doctor said, thinking of
Cuckoo's broken wail to him, as she sat on that autumn evening in his
consulting-room.
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