but it was not your fault. Tell me, did you go behind and see her, after
the play was over?"

"Yes."

"I felt sure you had. Did you make a scene with her?"

"I was brutal, Harry--perfectly brutal. But it is all right now. I am
not sorry for anything that has happened. It has taught me to know
myself better."

"Ah, Dorian, I am so glad you take it in that way! I was afraid I would
find you plunged in remorse and tearing that nice curly hair of yours."

"I have got through all that," said Dorian, shaking his head and
smiling. "I am perfectly happy now. I know what conscience is, to begin
with. It is not what you told me it was. It is the divinest thing in us.
Don't sneer at it, Harry, any more--at least not before me. I want to be
good. I can't bear the idea of my soul being hideous."

"A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian! I congratulate you
on it. But how are you going to begin?"

"By marrying Sibyl Vane."

"Marrying Sibyl Vane!" cried Lord Henry, standing up and looking at him
in perplexed amazement. "But, my dear Dorian--"

"Yes, Harry, I know what you are going to say. Something dreadful about
marriage. Don't say it. Don't ever say things of that kind to me again.
Two days ago I asked Sibyl to marry me. I am not going to break my word
to her. She is to be my wife."

"Your wife! Dorian! . . . Didn't you get my letter? I wrote to you this
morning, and sent the note down by my own man."

"Your letter? Oh, yes, I remember. I have not read it yet, Harry. I was
afraid there might be something in it that I wouldn't like. You cut life
to pieces with your epigrams."

"You know nothing then?"

"What do you mean?"

Lord Henry walked across the room, and sitting down by Dorian Gray, took
both his hands in his own and held them tightly. "Dorian," he said, "my
letter--don't be frightened--was to tell you that Sibyl Vane is dead."

A cry of pain broke from the lad's lips, and he leaped to his feet,
tearing his hands away from Lord Henry's grasp. "Dead! Sibyl dead! It is
not true! It is a horrible lie! How dare you say it?"

"It is quite true, Dorian," said Lord Henry, gravely. "It is in all the
morning papers. I wrote down to you to ask you not to see any one till I
came. There will have to be an inquest, of course, and you must not be
mixed up in it. Things like that make a man fashionable in Paris. But in
London people are so prejudiced. Here, one should never make one's debut
with a scandal. One should reserve that to give an interest to one's old
age. I suppose they don't know your name at the theatre? If they don't,
it is all right. Did any one see you going round to her room? That is an
important point."

Dorian did not answer for a few moments. He was dazed with horror.
Finally he stammered, in a stifled voice, "Harry, did you say an
inquest? What did you mean by that? Did Sibyl--? Oh, Harry, I can't bear
it! But be quick. Tell me everything at once."

"I have no doubt it was not an accident, Dorian, though it must be put
in that way to the public. It seems that as she was leaving the theatre
with her mother, about half-past twelve or so, she said she had
forgotten something upstairs. They waited some time for her, but she did
not come down again. They ultimately found her lying dead on the floor
of her dressing-room. She had swallowed something by mistake, some
dreadful thing they use at theatres. I don't know what it was, but it
had either prussic acid or white lead in it. I should fancy it was
prussic acid, as she seems to have died instantaneously."

"Harry, Harry, it is terrible!" cried the lad.

"Yes; it is very tragic, of course, but you must not get yourself mixed
up in it. I see by The Standard that she was seventeen. I should have
thought she was almost younger than that. She looked such a child, and
seemed to know so little about acting. Dorian, you mustn't let this
thing get on your nerves. You must come and dine with me, and afterwards
we will look in at the opera. It is a Patti night, and everybody will be
there. You can come to my sister's box. She has got some smart women
with her."

"So I have murdered Sibyl Vane," said Dorian Gray, half to himself,
"murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife.
Yet the roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as
happily in my garden. And to-night I am to dine with you, and then go on
to the opera, and sup somewhere, I suppose, afterwards. How
extraordinarily dramatic life is! If I had read all this in a book,
Harry, I think I would have wept over it. Somehow, now that it has
happened actually, and to me, it seems far too wonderful for tears. Here
is the first passionate love-letter I have ever written in my life.
Strange, that my first passionate love-letter should have been addressed
to a dead girl. Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent people we
call the dead? Sibyl! Can she feel, or know, or listen? Oh, Harry, how I


<< previous page | next page >>

Jump to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 |