be so indifferent. You have a wonderful influence. Let it be for good,
not for evil. They say that you corrupt every one with whom you become
intimate, and that it is quite sufficient for you to enter a house for
shame of some kind to follow after. I don't know whether it is so or
not. How should I know? But it is said of you. I am told things that it
seems impossible to doubt. Lord Gloucester was one of my greatest
friends at Oxford. He showed me a letter that his wife had written to
him when she was dying alone in her villa at Mentone. Your name was
implicated in the most terrible confession I ever read. I told him that
it was absurd--that I knew you thoroughly and that you were incapable of
anything of the kind. Know you? I wonder do I know you? Before I could
answer that, I should have to see your soul."

"To see my soul!" muttered Dorian Gray, starting up from the sofa and
turning almost white from fear.

"Yes," answered Hallward gravely, and with deep-toned sorrow in his
voice, "to see your soul. But only God can do that."

A bitter laugh of mockery broke from the lips of the younger man. "You
shall see it yourself, to-night!" he cried, seizing a lamp from the
table. "Come: it is your own handiwork. Why shouldn't you look at it?
You can tell the world all about it afterwards, if you choose. Nobody
would believe you. If they did believe you, they would like me all the
better for it. I know the age better than you do, though you will prate
about it so tediously. Come, I tell you. You have chattered enough about
corruption. Now you shall look on it face to face."

There was the madness of pride in every word he uttered. He stamped his
foot upon the ground in his boyish insolent manner. He felt a terrible
joy at the thought that some one else was to share his secret, and that
the man who had painted the portrait that was the origin of all his
shame was to be burdened for the rest of his life with the hideous
memory of what he had done.

"Yes," he continued, coming closer to him and looking steadfastly into
his stern eyes, "I shall show you my soul. You shall see the thing that
you fancy only God can see."

Hallward started back. "This is blasphemy, Dorian!" he cried. "You must
not say things like that. They are horrible, and they don't mean anything."

"You think so?" He laughed again.

"I know so. As for what I said to you to-night, I said it for your good.
You know I have been always a stanch friend to you."

"Don't touch me. Finish what you have to say."

A twisted flash of pain shot across the painter's face. He paused for a
moment, and a wild feeling of pity came over him. After all, what right
had he to pry into the life of Dorian Gray? If he had done a tithe of
what was rumoured about him, how much he must have suffered! Then he
straightened himself up, and walked over to the fire-place, and stood
there, looking at the burning logs with their frostlike ashes and their
throbbing cores of flame.

"I am waiting, Basil," said the young man in a hard clear voice.

He turned round. "What I have to say is this," he cried. "You must give
me some answer to these horrible charges that are made against you. If
you tell me that they are absolutely untrue from beginning to end, I
shall believe you. Deny them, Dorian, deny them! Can't you see what I am
going through? My God! don't tell me that you are bad, and corrupt, and
shameful."

Dorian Gray smiled. There was a curl of contempt in his lips. "Come
upstairs, Basil," he said quietly. "I keep a diary of my life from day
to day, and it never leaves the room in which it is written. I shall
show it to you if you come with me."

"I shall come with you, Dorian, if you wish it. I see I have missed my
train. That makes no matter. I can go to-morrow. But don't ask me to
read anything to-night. All I want is a plain answer to my question."

"That shall be given to you upstairs. I could not give it here. You will
not have to read long."

CHAPTER 13

He passed out of the room and began the ascent, Basil Hallward following
close behind. They walked softly, as men do instinctively at night. The
lamp cast fantastic shadows on the wall and staircase. A rising wind
made some of the windows rattle.

When they reached the top landing, Dorian set the lamp down on the
floor, and taking out the key, turned it in the lock. "You insist on
knowing, Basil?" he asked in a low voice.

"Yes."

"I am delighted," he answered, smiling. Then he added, somewhat harshly,
"You are the one man in the world who is entitled to know everything
about me. You have had more to do with my life than you think"; and,
taking up the lamp, he opened the door and went in. A cold current of
air passed them, and the light shot up for a moment in a flame of murky
orange. He shuddered. "Shut the door behind you," he whispered, as he
placed the lamp on the table.

Hallward glanced round him with a puzzled expression. The room looked as


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