his face in his hands.

"Good God, Dorian, what a lesson! What an awful lesson!" There was no
answer, but he could hear the young man sobbing at the window. "Pray,
Dorian, pray," he murmured. "What is it that one was taught to say in
one's boyhood? 'Lead us not into temptation. Forgive us our sins. Wash
away our iniquities.' Let us say that together. The prayer of your pride
has been answered. The prayer of your repentance will be answered also.
I worshipped you too much. I am punished for it. You worshipped yourself
too much. We are both punished."

Dorian Gray turned slowly around and looked at him with tear-dimmed
eyes. "It is too late, Basil," he faltered.

"It is never too late, Dorian. Let us kneel down and try if we cannot
remember a prayer. Isn't there a verse somewhere, 'Though your sins be
as scarlet, yet I will make them as white as snow'?"

"Those words mean nothing to me now."

"Hush! Don't say that. You have done enough evil in your life. My God!
Don't you see that accursed thing leering at us?"

Dorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly an uncontrollable
feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him, as though it had
been suggested to him by the image on the canvas, whispered into his ear
by those grinning lips. The mad passions of a hunted animal stirred
within him, and he loathed the man who was seated at the table, more
than in his whole life he had ever loathed anything. He glanced wildly
around. Something glimmered on the top of the painted chest that faced
him. His eye fell on it. He knew what it was. It was a knife that he had
brought up, some days before, to cut a piece of cord, and had forgotten
to take away with him. He moved slowly towards it, passing Hallward as
he did so. As soon as he got behind him, he seized it and turned round.
Hallward stirred in his chair as if he was going to rise. He rushed at
him and dug the knife into the great vein that is behind the ear,
crushing the man's head down on the table and stabbing again and again.

There was a stifled groan and the horrible sound of some one choking
with blood. Three times the outstretched arms shot up convulsively,
waving grotesque, stiff-fingered hands in the air. He stabbed him twice
more, but the man did not move. Something began to trickle on the floor.
He waited for a moment, still pressing the head down. Then he threw the
knife on the table, and listened.

He could hear nothing, but the drip, drip on the threadbare carpet. He
opened the door and went out on the landing. The house was absolutely
quiet. No one was about. For a few seconds he stood bending over the
balustrade and peering down into the black seething well of darkness.
Then he took out the key and returned to the room, locking himself in as
he did so.

The thing was still seated in the chair, straining over the table with
bowed head, and humped back, and long fantastic arms. Had it not been
for the red jagged tear in the neck and the clotted black pool that was
slowly widening on the table, one would have said that the man was
simply asleep.

How quickly it had all been done! He felt strangely calm, and walking
over to the window, opened it and stepped out on the balcony. The wind
had blown the fog away, and the sky was like a monstrous peacock's tail,
starred with myriads of golden eyes. He looked down and saw the
policeman going his rounds and flashing the long beam of his lantern on
the doors of the silent houses. The crimson spot of a prowling hansom
gleamed at the corner and then vanished. A woman in a fluttering shawl
was creeping slowly by the railings, staggering as she went. Now and
then she stopped and peered back. Once, she began to sing in a hoarse
voice. The policeman strolled over and said something to her. She
stumbled away, laughing. A bitter blast swept across the square. The
gas-lamps flickered and became blue, and the leafless trees shook their
black iron branches to and fro. He shivered and went back, closing the
window behind him.

Having reached the door, he turned the key and opened it. He did not
even glance at the murdered man. He felt that the secret of the whole
thing was not to realize the situation. The friend who had painted the
fatal portrait to which all his misery had been due had gone out of his
life. That was enough.

Then he remembered the lamp. It was a rather curious one of Moorish
workmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques of burnished
steel, and studded with coarse turquoises. Perhaps it might be missed by
his servant, and questions would be asked. He hesitated for a moment,
then he turned back and took it from the table. He could not help seeing
the dead thing. How still it was! How horribly white the long hands
looked! It was like a dreadful wax image.

Having locked the door behind him, he crept quietly downstairs. The
woodwork creaked and seemed to cry out as if in pain. He stopped several
times and waited. No: everything was still. It was merely the sound of
his own footsteps.

When he reached the library, he saw the bag and coat in the corner. They
must be hidden away somewhere. He unlocked a secret press that was in
the wainscoting, a press in which he kept his own curious disguises, and
put them into it. He could easily burn them afterwards. Then he pulled
out his watch. It was twenty minutes to two.

He sat down and began to think. Every year--every month, almost-- men
were strangled in England for what he had done. There had been a madness


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