"Good night, then."

"Good night," answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping
his parched mouth with a handkerchief.

Dorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face. As he drew
the curtain aside, a hideous laugh broke from the painted lips of the
woman who had taken his money. "There goes the devil's bargain!" she
hiccoughed, in a hoarse voice.

"Curse you!" he answered, "don't call me that."

She snapped her fingers. "Prince Charming is what you like to be called,
ain't it?" she yelled after him.

The drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly
round. The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear. He
rushed out as if in pursuit.

Dorian Gray hurried along the quay through the drizzling rain. His
meeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered
if the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, as
Basil Hallward had said to him with such infamy of insult. He bit his
lip, and for a few seconds his eyes grew sad. Yet, after all, what did
it matter to him? One's days were too brief to take the burden of
another's errors on one's shoulders. Each man lived his own life and
paid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so
often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed. In
her dealings with man, destiny never closed her accounts.

There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or
for what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of
the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful
impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will.
They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from
them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but
to give rebellion its fascination and disobedience its charm. For all
sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are sins of
disobedience. When that high spirit, that morning star of evil, fell
from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell.

Callous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for
rebellion, Dorian Gray hastened on, quickening his step as he went, but
as he darted aside into a dim archway, that had served him often as a
short cut to the ill-famed place where he was going, he felt himself
suddenly seized from behind, and before he had time to defend himself,
he was thrust back against the wall, with a brutal hand round his throat.

He struggled madly for life, and by a terrible effort wrenched the
tightening fingers away. In a second he heard the click of a revolver,
and saw the gleam of a polished barrel, pointing straight at his head,
and the dusky form of a short, thick-set man facing him.

"What do you want?" he gasped.

"Keep quiet," said the man. "If you stir, I shoot you."

"You are mad. What have I done to you?"

"You wrecked the life of Sibyl Vane," was the answer, "and Sibyl Vane
was my sister. She killed herself. I know it. Her death is at your door.
I swore I would kill you in return. For years I have sought you. I had
no clue, no trace. The two people who could have described you were
dead. I knew nothing of you but the pet name she used to call you. I
heard it to-night by chance. Make your peace with God, for to-night you
are going to die."

Dorian Gray grew sick with fear. "I never knew her," he stammered. "I
never heard of her. You are mad."

"You had better confess your sin, for as sure as I am James Vane, you
are going to die." There was a horrible moment. Dorian did not know what
to say or do. "Down on your knees!" growled the man. "I give you one
minute to make your peace--no more. I go on board to-night for India,
and I must do my job first. One minute. That's all."

Dorian's arms fell to his side. Paralysed with terror, he did not know
what to do. Suddenly a wild hope flashed across his brain. "Stop," he
cried. "How long ago is it since your sister died? Quick, tell me!"

"Eighteen years," said the man. "Why do you ask me? What do years matter?"

"Eighteen years," laughed Dorian Gray, with a touch of triumph in his
voice. "Eighteen years! Set me under the lamp and look at my face!"

James Vane hesitated for a moment, not understanding what was meant.
Then he seized Dorian Gray and dragged him from the archway.

Dim and wavering as was the wind-blown light, yet it served to show him
the hideous error, as it seemed, into which he had fallen, for the face
of the man he had sought to kill had all the bloom of boyhood, all the
unstained purity of youth. He seemed little more than a lad of twenty
summers, hardly older, if older indeed at all, than his sister had been
when they had parted so many years ago. It was obvious that this was not
the man who had destroyed her life.

He loosened his hold and reeled back. "My God! my God!" he cried, "and I
would have murdered you!"

Dorian Gray drew a long breath. "You have been on the brink of


<< 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 |