never permitted
really to know himself unless, in an access of mad folly and overweening
pride, he succeeds in crossing the boundary which to pass is sheer
wickedness. And I tried to turn away, but I could not--I could not.
I made a supreme effort. It was in vain.

"I saw him go home. At last he was sick of his sin. There rose within him
that strange longing for goodness, for purity and rest, that terrible,
aching desire to be what those who once loved him for long had thought
him to be, which perhaps never dies in the soul of a human being. Is it
the instinct of the Creator burning like an undying spark in the created?
And, as he drew near to his house, there came to him the resolve to
speak, to acknowledge, to say, 'This is what I am. Know me as I am! Care
for me still, in spite of what I am!' He went in, and sought her--the
woman. She was alone. Sleep had not come to her. Perhaps some instinct
had told her she must wake and be ready for something. Then he gathered
together the little that was left to him of courage, and he strove to
tell her, to make her understand some of the truth, to obtain from her
the greatest of human gifts--the love of one from whom a man has no
secrets that he can tell.

"She listened for a moment, then she thrust out her hands as if to push
the truth of him out of her life. And last night she left him--going in
fear of him."

The professor shook his narrow shoulders, and sprang abruptly to his
feet. The ticking of the clock now sounded almost like a hammer beating
in his ears.

"It's time we had some light," he said in rather a loud voice.

The darkness that was Chichester moved. A gleam of light shone in the
little room, revealing the thin Madonna, "The Light of the World," the
piano, the neatly bound books of the curate of St. Joseph's; revealing
Chichester, who now stood facing the professor, white, drawn, lined, but
with eyes full of almost hideous resolution and power.

"I advise," said the professor--"I advise you from this time forward--"

He stared into the eyes of the man opposite to him, and his voice died
away in his throat.

When, immediately afterward, he found himself walking hurriedly toward
Kensington High Street the sweat was pouring down his face.

XII

One night of that autumn, driven by an overmastering impulse, Evelyn
Malling set out toward Kensington. He felt that he must know something
more of the matter between Marcus Harding and Henry Chichester.