"No, we are no longer friends after this denunciation you have to-day
uttered. You suspect me of being a murderess; therefore I leave you to
assist yourself."
"Do you actually know where she is and refuse to tell me?" I cried.
"Certainly," she responded. "There is no reason why her happiness
should be again disturbed."
In an instant a fierce vengeance swept through my brain. This woman was
of the flesh, for she stood there before me, her beauty heightened by
the flush that had risen to her cheeks, her pale lips quivering with an
uncontrollable anxiety which had taken possession of her, yet she was
more cruel, more relentless, more ingenious in the working of evil, more
resistless and invincible in her diabolical power, than any other person
on the earth. All the strength, all the influence, all the ruling power
possessed by Satan himself was centred within her.
I looked at the evil light in her eyes. She was, indeed, the
incarnation of the Evil One.
"You hold the secret of Muriel's hiding-place and refuse to tell me; you
openly defy me; therefore I am at liberty to act in whatever manner
pleases me--am I not?"
"Certainly," she answered, slowly twisting her rings around her finger.
"Then listen," I said. "You told me once that you could not love me
because you loved another. You spoke the truth, for since then that
fact has been proved. Some time ago a man, honest and upright, who on
account of his religious convictions had resolved to give himself up to
labour in the interests of the poor, accepted a curacy in a poor London
parish. He worked there, striving night and day, denying himself rest
and the comforts he could well afford in order that the sufferings of a
few might be alleviated. Into foul dens where people slept on mouldy
mattresses upon the floor, where ofttimes a paraffin lamp was placed in
the empty grate in place of a fire, and where hunger and dirt bred
disease, this man penetrated and distributed food and money, endearing
himself to those dregs of humanity, often the scum of the gaols, by his
untiring efforts, his justice, and his kindness of heart. Men who were
known to the police as desperate characters welcomed him and were
tractable enough beneath his influence. He never sought to cram
religion down their throats, for he knew that at first they would have
none of it. So he went to work to first gain their hearts, and
succeeded so completely that many a confession of crime was in the
silence of those bare rooms whispered into his ear by one who was
repentant."
I paused and glanced at her. Her arms had fallen to her sides; she was
standing motionless as a statue.
"While pursuing this good work--work undertaken without any thought of
the laudation of his fellow-men--there came into that man's life a
woman. She came to tempt him from the path of righteousness, to dazzle
his eyes with her beauty, and to absorb his love. He saw himself on the
verge of a fatal fascination, an entrancement which would inevitably
cause him to break his vow to God; and relinquishing his work for a
time, he fled from her secretly. He wished to avoid her; for although
he loved her, he knew that she had been sent into his life by the
Tempter to rend and destroy him, for he, alas! knew too well that the
evil influences in the world are far more potent than the good, and that
the godly are as rocks among the pebbles of the sea."