your retorts and test-tubes?'

'Yes, it does.'

'Good. Then I can put faith in the result.'

'Yet the hope began in a lie,' rejoined Peak, bitterly. 'It will always
be pleasant to look back upon that, won't it? You see: by no
conceivable honest effort could I have gained this point. Life utterly
denied to me the satisfaction of my strongest instincts, so long as I
plodded on without cause of shame; the moment I denied my faith, and
put on a visage of brass, great possibilities opened before me. Of
course I understand the moralist's position. It behoved me, though I
knew that a barren and solitary track would be my only treading to the
end, to keep courageously onward. If I can't _believe_ that any such
duty is imposed upon me, where is the obligation to persevere, the
morality of doing so? That is the worst hypocrisy. I have been honest,
inasmuch as I have acted in accordance with my actual belief.'

'M--m--m,' muttered Earwaker, slowly. 'Then you have never been
troubled with a twinge of conscience?'

'With a thousand! I have been racked, martyred. What has that to do
with it? Do you suppose I attach any final significance to those
torments? Conscience is the same in my view as an inherited disease
which may possibly break out on any most innocent physical
indulgence.--What end have I been pursuing? Is it criminal? Is it mean?
I wanted to win the love of a woman--nothing more. To do that, I have
had to behave like the grovelling villain who has no desire but to fill
his pockets. And with success!--You understand that, Earwaker? I have
succeeded! What respect can I have for the common morality, after this?'

'You have succeeded?' the other asked, thoughtfully. 'I could have
imagined that you had been in appearance successful'----

He paused, and Peak resumed with vehemence:

'No, not in appearance only. I can't tell you the story'----

'I don't wish you to'----

'But what I have won is won for ever. The triumph no longer rests on
deceit. What I insist upon is that by deceit only was it rendered
possible. If a starving man succeeds in stealing a loaf of bread, the
food will benefit him no less than if he had purchased it; it is good,
true sustenance, no matter how he got it. To be sure, the man may
prefer starvation; he may have so strong a metaphysical faith that
death is welcome in comparison with what he calls dishonour. I--I have
no such faith; and millions of other men in this country would tell the
blu