ignified. He fought a losing battle with
bludgeons, and had an obvious contempt for the bludgeons while in the
act of using them in defence or in attack. And at last, with a sort of
sharp cry, he threw up his hands, and exclaimed in a voice I hardly knew
as his:--

"God forgive you, Alistair, for what you're doing! God forgive
you--murderer, murderer!"

This dolorous exclamation ran through me like cold water and chilled all
the warmth of my intellectual excitement.

"Murderer!" I repeated inexpressively.

Doctor Wedderburn sat in his chair trembling, and looking upon me with
despairing and menacing eyes, the eyes of a man who curses but cannot
fight his enemy.

"Of a soul, of a soul," he said. "The poisoned dagger?--doubt, the
poisoned dagger--you've plunged it into me, boy."

Then raising his voice harshly, he exclaimed:

"Curse you, curse you!"

I was thunderstruck. I declare it here, for it is true. I had
defamed--and deliberately--the doctor's dearest idols. I had driven my
lance into his convictions. I had blasphemed what he worshipped, and had
denied all he affirmed. But that I had made so terrific an impression
upon his mind, his soul--this astounded me. Yet what else could his
passionate denunciation mean? Had I, a boy, unused to controversy,
unskilled in dialectics, overthrown with my hasty words the faith of
this strong and fervent man? The thought thrilled one side of my dual
nature with triumph, pierced the other with grim horror. My emotions
were divided and complex. As I sat silent, my face dogged yet ashamed,
the doctor got up from his chair trembling like one with the palsy.

"Away from me--away," he cried in a hoarse voice, and pointing at the
door. "I'll have no more talk with the Devil, no more--no more!"

I had not a word. I got up and went, bending a steady, fascinated look
upon this old mentor of mine, who now proclaimed himself my victim.
Arrived in the garden I found a thin moon riding above the sycamores,
and soft airs of Spring playing round the doctor's habitation.
Strangely, I had no mind to begone from it immediately. I crossed the
garden bit and paced up and down the country lane that skirted it,
keeping an eye upon the lighted window of the study. So I went back and
forth for full an hour, I suppose. Then I heard a sound in the Spring
night. The doctor's hall door banged, and, peering through the privet
hedge that protected his meagre domain, I perceived him come out into
the