"I'm going to ask you to violate your ethics, doctor. You know the situation Marian Williamson is in. It would help us a lot to understand what happened to her if you could tell us what she was. like before the somec."

"It's unethical, all right, but I knew that's what you'd want to know, and that's why I came out. I'm prepared to help. I'm sure she'd approve of my violating her confidence if it might help to save her life. She's in favor of survival. Or rather, of survival on the best possible terms."

George Rines showed him transcripts of the dialogues with Marian Williamson, who now believed herself to be Lydia Harper.

"This is odd," Dr. Manwaring pointed out.

"I know," George said. "How odd?"

"Well, I should tell you that I don't believe in a soul. I don't even believe in a mind, apart from brain activity. But I don't know how to explain this without resorting to something like that."

"You haven't told me what you're trying to explain."

"Marian Williamson was a very religious woman. Not in any formal way, of course. Not with any organization. But she believed profoundly in God. And believed that he was taking a direct role in her life. Whenever she overcame a rival for a position in her business, she ascribed the victory to God. Actually, of course, she had undercut the poor devil and eaten the ground out from under him. Or her. She had no favoritism for either sex. She'd shaft anybody. But, you see, in this dialogue it could be Marian. 'Oh, God, help me,' she says. I think she says that in three of the dialogues, doesn't she?"

"Yes.

"And something else. This sex thing. Marian had an active sex life. She was no prude. Never married, never had children, but certainly knew plenty of men and tasted the fruits of the garden of Eden, so to speak. But this passage in the last dialogue, where she talks about selling herself.