ories that you have been seen creeping at dawn out of
dreadful houses and slinking in disguise into the foulest dens in
London. Are they true? Can they be true? When I first heard them, I
laughed. I hear them now, and they make me shudder. What about your
country house, and the life that is led there? Dorian, you don't know
what is said about you. I won't tell you that I don't want to preach to
you. I remember Harry saying once that every man who turned himself into
an amateur curate for the moment always began by saying that, and then
proceeded to break his word. I do want to preach to you. I want you to
lead such a life as will make the world respect you. I want you to have
a clean name and a fair record. I want you to get rid of the dreadful
people you associate with. Don't shrug your shoulders like that. Don't
be so indifferent. You have a wonderful influence. Let it be for good,
not for evil. They say that you corrupt everyone with whom you become
intimate, and that it is quite sufficient for you to enter a house, for
shame of some kind to follow after. I don't know whether it is so or
not. How should I know? But it is said of you. I am told things that it
seems impossible to doubt. Lord Gloucester was one of my greatest
friends at Oxford. He showed me a letter that his wife had written to
him when she was dying alone in her villa at Mentone. Your name was
implicated in the most terrible confession I ever read. I told him that
it was absurd--that I knew you thoroughly, and that you were incapable
of anything of the kind. Know you? I wonder do I know you? Before I
could answer that, I should have to see your soul."

"To see my soul!" muttered Dorian Gray, starting up from the sofa and
turning almost white from fear.

"Yes," answered Hallward, gravely, and with deep-toned sorrow in his
voice--"to see your soul. But only God can do that."

A bitter laugh of mockery broke from the lips of the younger man. "You
shall see it yourself, to-night!" he cried, seizing a lamp from the
table. "Come: it is your own handiwork. Why shouldn't you look at it?
You can tell the world all about it afterwards, if you choose. Nobody
would believe you. If they did believe you, they would like me all the
better for it. I know the age better than you do, though you will prate
about it so tediously. Come, I tell you. You have chattered enough about
corruption. Now you shall look on it face to face."

There was the madness of pride in ever