in vain.

"You seem a little confused, Val--you always were a modest chap.
But surely you of all men can trust my discretion--?"

"That's enough," said Val. He touched Hyde's coat with his
finger-tips, an airy movement, almost a caress, which seemed to
come from a long way off. "Lawrence, you're hurting yourself
more than me."

It was enough and more than enough: an arrest instant and final.
Later Lawrence wondered whether Val knew what he had done, or
whether it was only a thought unconsciously made visible; it was
so unlike all he had seen of Val, so like much that he had felt.

It put him to silence. Not only so, but it flung a light cloud
of mystery over what had seemed noonday clear. Since that first
night when he had watched in a mirror the disentangling of
Laura's scarf, Lawrence had entertained no doubt of Val's
sentiments, but now he was left uncertain. Val had translated
himself into a country to which Lawrence could not follow him,
and the light of an unknown sun was on his way.

Lawrence drew back with an impatient gesture. "Oh, let's drop
all this!" The civilized second self was in revolt alike against
his own morbid cruelty and Val's escape into heaven: he would
admit nothing except that he had gone through one trying scene
after another in the last eighteen hours, and that Val had paid
for the irritation produced successively by Mrs. Cleve, Isabel, a
white night, and a distressed anxious consciousness of unavowed
guilt. "We shall be at each other's throats in a minute, which
wouldn't suit either your book or mine--you've no idea, Val, how
little it would suit mine! I'm sorry I was so offensive. But
you wrong me, you do indeed; I'm not in love with Laura, and, if
I were, the notion of picking poor Bernard's pocket is absolutely
repugnant to me. Social expediency be hanged! What! as his
guest?-- But let's drop recrimination; I had no right to resent
what you said after forcing you to say it, nor, in any case, to
taunt you . . . I beg your pardon: there! for heaven's sake let's
leave it at that."

"Will you release me from my parole?"

"Yes, and wish to heaven I'd never extracted it. I had no right
to impose it on you or to hold you to it. But don't give
yourself away, Val, I can't bear to think of what you'll have to
face. It will be what you once called it--crucifixion."

"No, freedom," said Val. "After all these years in prison." He
put up his hand to his head. "The brand--the--