ll with us. To
you it yet belongs. If you have done aught amiss, I entreat you to
confess, and make amends for it, whilst there is yet time."

Dorian, laying his hands upon the old servant's shoulders, pushes him
gently backwards, so that he may look the more readily into his face.

"Why, Simon! How absolutely in earnest you are!" he says, lightly.
"What crime have I committed, that I should spend the rest of my days
in sackcloth and ashes!"

"I know nothing," says old Gale, sadly. "How should I be wiser than my
masters? All I feel is that youth is careless and headstrong, and
things once done are difficult of undoing. If you would go to your
grave happy, keep yourself from causing misery to those who love you
and--_trust_ in you."

His voice sinks, and grows tremulous. Dorian, taking his hands from
his shoulders, moves back from the old man, and regards him
meditatively, stroking his fair moustache slowly, in a rather
mechanical fashion, as he does so.

"The whole world seems dyspeptic to-day," he says, ironically. Then,
"It would be such a horrid bore to make any one miserable that I
daresay I sha'n't try it. If, however, I do commit the mysterious
serious offence at which you broadly hint, and of which you plainly
believe me fully capable, I'll let you know about it."

He smiles again,--a jarring sort of smile, that hardly accords with
the beauty of the dying day,--and, moving away from the old man,
crosses the oaken flooring to the glass door that lies at the farther
end of the room, and that opens on to a gravelled path outside, on
which lilacs are flinging broadcast their rich purple bloom. As he
moves, with a pale face and set lips (for the bitter smile has faded),
he tramples ruthlessly, and without thought for their beauty, upon the
deep soft patches of coloring that are strewn upon the flooring from
the stained-glass windows above.

Throwing open the door, he welcomes gladly the cool evening air that
seems to rush to meet him.

"Pah!" he says, almost aloud, as he strides onwards beneath the
budding elms. "To think, after all these years, they should so readily
condemn! Even that old man, who has known me from my infancy, believes
me guilty."

Then a change sweeps over him. Insults to himself are forgotten, and
his thoughts travel onward to a fear that for many days has been
growing and gaining strength.

_Can_ Horace have committed this base deed? This fear usurps all other
considerations. Going