in St. Joseph's. It is not he who conceived that sermon of the man
and his double. It is not he who has sometimes been terribly afraid."

"Afraid! Afraid!"

"There have been moments when I have been moved to snatch my double out
of the sight of men. That day when we met Evelyn Malling I feared as I
left them alone together; and when I found Malling intimately there in
that house, I felt like one coming upon an ambush which might be
destructive of his safety. My instinct was to detach Malling from my
double, to attach him to myself. My conduct startled him. I saw that
plainly. Yet I tried to win him over, as it were, to my side. He came to
me. I strove to tell him, but something secret prevented me. And
how could he assist me?"

Chichester got up from the table. The professor saw a darkness moving as
he went to stand by the empty fireplace.

"I must look on truth," he continued; "I have to. The fascination of
staring upon the truth of oneself is deadly, but it surpasses all other
fascination. He sins more often now. I watch him sin. Sometimes under
my contemplation I see him writhing like a thing in a trap--the semblance
of myself. How the woman despises him now! Sometimes I feel deeply sad
at my own ruthlessness. It is frightful to contemplate the physical wreck
of a being whom, in some strange and hideous way, one always feels to
be oneself. When I look at him it is as if his fallen face, his hanging
nerveless hands, his down-drooping figure and eyes lit with despair were
mine. His poses, his gestures, his physical tricks, they are all mine.
I watch them with a cold, enveloping disgust, frozen in criticism of
everything he does, anticipating every movement, every look, hating
it when it comes, because it is bred out of the remnant of a spirit
I despise as no man surely has ever despised before. Henry Chichester
would pity, but he is overborne. He is in me as a drop may be in the
ocean. I am most aware of him when my double sins. Only last night we
sat"--Chichester came back to the table, and stood there, very faintly
relieved against the darkness by the dim light which penetrated through
the windows--"we sat in the darkness, and more deeply than ever before
I went down into the darkness. I felt as if I were penetrating into the
last recesses of a ruined temple. And there, in the ultimate chamber
crouched all that was left of the inmate, terrified, helpless, and
ignorant. As I looked upon him I understood why man is