t troubled him. Basil had paihe portrait that had marred his life. He could not five him that. It was the portrait that had done everything. Basil had said things to him that were unbearable, and that he had yet borh patiehe murder had been simply the madness of a moment. As for Alan Campbell, his suicide had been his own act. He had chosen to do it. It was nothing to him.
A new life! That was what he wahat was what he was waiting for. Surely he had begun it already. He had spared one ihing, at any rate. He would never agai innoce. He would be good.
As he thought of Hetty Merton, he began to wonder if the portrait in the locked room had ged. Surely it was not still so horrible as it had been? Perhaps if his life became pure, he would be able to expel every sign of evil passion from the face. Perhaps the signs of evil had already gone away. He would go and look.
He took the lamp from the table and crept upstairs. As he unbarred the door, a smile of joy flitted across his strangely young-looking fad lingered for a moment about his lips. Yes, he would be good, and the hideous thing that he had hidden away would no longer be a terror to him. He felt as if the load had been lifted from him already.
He went in quietly, log the door behind him, as was his , and dragged the purple hanging from the portrait. A cry of pain and indignation broke from him. He could see no ge, save that in the eyes there was a look of ing and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite. The thing was still loathsome--more loathsome, if possible, than before--and the scarlet deotted the hand seemed brighter, and more like blood newly spilled. Therembled. Had it been merely vanity that had made him do his one good deed? Or the desire for a new sensation, as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mog laugh? Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do things fihan we are ourselves? Or, perhaps, all these? And why was the red stain larger than it had bee