roke in earnestly, "I put it to him as well as I could,
quite quietly and gently. I talked of our old affection, of the good and
evil days we had passed together: you know I could never be harsh to
him, never.

"There never was," he burst out, in a sort of exaltation, "there never
was in the world such a betrayal. Do you remember once telling me that
the only flaw you could find in the perfect symbolism of the gospel
story was that Jesus was betrayed by Judas, the foreigner from Kerioth,
when he should have been betrayed by John, the beloved disciple; for it
is only those we love who can betray us? Frank, how true, how tragically
true that is! It is those we love who betray us with a kiss."

He was silent for some time and then went on wearily, "I wish you would
speak to him, Frank, and show him how unjust and unkind he is to me."

"I cannot possibly do that, Oscar," I said, "I do not know all the
relations between you and the myriad bands that unite you: I should only
do harm and not good."

"Frank," he cried, "you do know, you must know that he is responsible
for everything, for my downfall and my ruin. It was he who drove me to
fight with his father. I begged him not to, but he whipped me to it;
asked me what his father could do; pointed out to me contemptuously that
he could prove nothing; said he was the most loathsome, hateful creature
in the world, and that it was my duty to stop him, and that if I did
not, everyone would be laughing at me, and he could never care for a
coward. All his family, his brother and his mother, too, begged me to
attack Queensberry, all promised me their support and afterwards--

"You know, Frank, in the Cafe Royal before the trial how Bosie spoke to
you, when you warned me and implored me to drop the insane suit and go
abroad; how angry he got. You were not a friend of mine, he said. You
know he drove me to ruin in order to revenge himself on his father, and
then left me to suffer.

"And that's not the worst of it, Frank: I came out of prison determined
not to see him any more. I promised my poor wife I would not see him
again. I had forgiven him; but I did not want to see him. I had suffered
too much by him and through him, far too much. And then he wrote and
wrote of his love, crying it to me every hour, begging me to come,
telling me he only wanted me, in order to be happy, me in the whole
world. How could I help believing him, how could I keep away from him?
At last I yielded