Read these lines: "Come, I said, with decision, we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible." The speaker's concern for his friend's health works in the scene as

1. The speaker offers to turn back, and the offer is wrapped in flattery about how much the other man has to lose. 2. Every time the offer is made, the other man refuses it and presses further in. 3. An offer that is always refused, made by a man who never turns back himself, is not really an offer. 4. It is pressure applied in reverse, so option D describes its work in the scene. 5. Option A takes the speech at face value and misses that the speaker leads the way downward each time. _Source: Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado, public domain_