The awful struggle of his own soul against its last destruction sent a strong vibration through his softened voice, and lent the base lie he spoke such deadly beauty as might dwell in the face of Antichrist, to deceive all living things to sin.

He was still standing, and his hand lay out towards Veronica, on the shelf before the clock.  Slowly she turned towards him, at the first sound of his words, wondering and thrilled.

“Is it long?  I do not know,” he continued.  “It is more than a year, since I first knew what this love meant.  For I have loved little in my life—­little, and I am glad, though I have been sorry for it often, for all I ever had, or have, or am to have till I die, is for you, Veronica, all of it—­the love of heart and hand and soul, to live for you and die for you, in trust and faith, and love of you.  You wonder?  Beloved—­if you knew yourself, you would not wonder that I love you so!  There is no man who could save himself, if he lived by your side, as I have lived.  You smile at that?  Well—­you are too young to know yourself, but I am not—­I know—­I know—­I thought I knew too well, and must pay dear for knowing how one might love you and live.  But it is not too well, now.  It is life, not death.  It is hope, not despair—­it is all that life and joy can mean, in the highest.”

He paused, his eyes in hers, his hand still stretched out and lying on the shelf.  Gently hers sought it and lay in it, and there was light in her face, for she believed.  And he, in his suffering within, was moved; as a man is, who, being in his life but a poor knave, plays bright truth and splendid passion on a stage, and the contrast that is between being and seeming, in his heart, makes him play greatness with a strong will, born of certain despair.

“I am glad,” said Veronica, softly, and she looked down, while her hand still lingered in his, and he went on.

“It is not easy for a man like me to believe that he has all the world in his grasp—­in the hold of his heart, to be his as long as he lives.  But you are making me believe it now—­all that I did not dare to think of as even most dimly possible in my lonely life—­that is why I thank you, that is why I bless you, and adore you, and love you as I do, as I can never make you guess, Veronica, as I scarcely hope you dream that a man may love a woman.  That is why I would die for you, Veronica, if God willed that I might!”

The great words lacked no outward sign of living truth.  His hand burned hers, and closed upon it, pressure for word, to the end, in the terrible play of acted earnestness.  Even his eyes brightened and filled themselves, determined to lie with all of him that lied to her.

Had he hated her, had it been a vengeance to make her love him in payment of a past debt of wrong, it would have seemed less foully base in his own eyes.  But he liked her.  She had always trusted him and liked him too, and there had been only kindness between them always.  That made it worse, and he knew it.  But he could do the worst now, he thought, for he had altogether given over his soul, to leave it in hell, without hope.