secrets. Come closer."

He dragged her with him towards the corner.

"Look!" he commanded. "Look at that thing in front of you--that thing
crouching there like an ape. It was once a man. It was once an active,
intelligent, healthy human being--a strong handsome member of a strong
handsome family. Everything was in its favor. There were no obstacles in
its path. It had many more natural gifts than the average man is endowed
with. It might have ruled an empire. It might have loaded its name with
honor, and left it to its children. It had the capability, the power,
and the opportunity to leave the world a better place than it found it.
Look at it now."

She stood silent, her head turned away. He went on, with increasing
rage.

"Look at that man now! He has brought himself to a state of gibbering
insanity by a life of indulgence in every form of vice and depravity
known to humanity. He knowingly and deliberately drained his mental and
physical resources by every insult to nature that depraved men and
women--the lowest creatures of the earth--have devised for the
satisfaction of their diseased senses. He was a drunkard and drug-fiend
before he was twenty. Every effort was made to check and reclaim him,
but he defied them all. He was fully warned. He knew what the
consequences would be. He knew that nature cannot be violated
continuously without exacting her penalty, sooner or later. But he
plunged on. Step by step he brought himself to this. His brain and his
body are decaying from the unnameable excesses he has committed with
both. He is literally rotting in front of us at this moment."

She put her hands up to her face.

"Can he hear you?" she gasped.

"I don't know," he replied savagely. "Perhaps he can. I hope he can. I
hope he can hear every word. It wouldn't be the first time he had heard
the story of his shame. And it won't be the last. Curse him!"

She tried to draw him back.

"Come away," she cried. "How can you stand in front of the poor
creature, and talk like that before his face?"

His iron grip closed on her wrist, and held her helpless.

"Why not?" he demanded, with dreadful bitterness. "Why should he be
spared because he is suffering a fraction of the just and natural
consequences of his own deliberate acts? What is there to pity in that?
It is a merciful retribution. If you have any sympathy to show--show it
to me."

"To you?" she echoed.

"To me," he repeated.

She screamed, and tried to