abolical impulse seized him to awaken her
then and there and force her to listen to a full confession of his
iniquities, without reticence and without apology. Surely no woman's love
could stand before that appalling revelation? But no; what other women
would do he would not undertake to say; _she_ would only look at him with
her innocent eyes, reiterating "It makes no difference."

Would he have cared more if she had cared less? On the whole--no. And
what if she had been a woman of a higher, austerer type? That woman would
have repelled him, thrown him back upon himself. She had drawn him by her
very foolishness. He had been brought back to her, again and again, by
the certainty of her unreasoning affection. By its purity also. That had
saved him from falling lower than a certain dimly defined level. If there
was a spark of good in him he owed it to her. He had never sunk so low as
in that intolerable moment when he had doubted her. For the behavior of
the brute is low enough in all conscience; but below that is the behavior
of the cad. Tyson had his own curious code of morals.

Yes; and in the raw enthusiasm of remorse he had made all manner of vows
and promises, and he felt bound in honor to keep them. He had talked of
a rupture with the past. A rupture with the past! You might as well talk
of breaking with your own shadow. The shadow of your past. Imbecile
expression! The past was in his blood and nerves; it was bone of his bone
and flesh of his flesh. It was he. Or rather it was this body of his that
seemed to live with a hideous independent life of its own. And yet, even
yet, there were moments when he caught a glimpse of his better self
struggling as if under the slough of dissolution; the soul that had never
seen the sun was writhing to leap into the light. He would have given the
whole world to be able to love Molly. There was no death and no
corruption like the death of love; and the spirit of his passion had
been too feeble to survive its divorce from the flesh.

He could not look away. He rose and lifted the lamp-shade, throwing the
pitiless light on the thing that fascinated him. She stirred in her
sleep, turning a little from the light. He bent over her pillow and
peered into her face. She woke suddenly, as if his gaze had drawn her
from sleep; and from the look in her eyes he judged a little of the
horror his own must have betrayed.

He shrank back guiltily, replaced the shade, and sat down in the chair