me, soul and body, and now he puts himself in the balance
against me and declares he outweighs me. Yes, Frank, he does; he told me
the other day I was not a poet, not a true poet, and he was, Alfred
Douglas greater than Oscar Wilde.

"I have not done much in the world," he went on hotly, "I know it better
than anyone, not a quarter of what I should have done, but there are
some things I have done which the world will not forget, can hardly
forget. If all the tribe of Douglas from the beginning and all their
achievements were added together and thrown into the balance, they would
not weigh as dust in comparison. Yet he reviled me, Frank, whipped me,
shamed me.... He has broken me, he has broken me, the man I loved; my
very heart is a cold weight in me," ... and he got up and moved aside
with the tears pouring down his cheeks.

"Don't take it so much to heart," I said in a minute or two, going after
him, "the loss of affection I cannot help, but a hundred or so a year is
not much; I will see that you get that every year."

"Oh, Frank, it is not the money; it is his denial, his insults, his hate
that kills me; the fact that I have ruined myself for someone who cares
nothing; who puts a little money before me; it is as if I were choked
with mud....

"Once I thought myself master of my life; lord of my fate, who could do
what I pleased and would always succeed. I was as a crowned king till I
met him, and now I am an exile and outcast and despised.

"I have lost my way in life; the passers-by all scorn me and the man
whom I loved whips me with foul insults and contempt. There is no
example in history of such a betrayal, no parallel. I am finished. It is
all over with me now--all! I hope the end will come quickly," and he
moved away to the window, his tears falling heavily.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] The rest of this story concerns me chiefly and I have therefore
relegated it to the Appendix for those who care to read it.

[34] Oscar was already getting L300 a year from his wife and Robert
Ross, to say nothing of the hundreds given to him from time to time by
other friends.

[35] The truth about this I have already stated.

[36] Though I have reported this conversation as faithfully as I can and
have indeed softened the impression Lord Alfred Douglas made upon me at
the time; still I am conscious that I may be doing him some injustice. I
have never really been in sympathy with him and it may well be that in
reporting him