his belief in her purity he had tried to purify himself, to purge away all the grossness and sensualness that, as he vainly fancied, made him unworthy to be the mate of so immaculate a creature; but he was not allowed to continue the purifying process; her horrible revelation ended it—­knocked the sense out of it, made it preposterously absurd.  “If Mavis had been in the beginning what she has come to be at last, she would have kept me on the highroad to Heaven.”  But all the chances had gone against him.  “My father failed me, my mother failed me, my wife failed me.”

“The worst faults I had in my prime were conceit and uppishness, but they only came from my ignorance.  They’d have been wiped out of me at the start, if I’d had the true advantages of education; regular school training, such as gentlemen’s sons enjoy, would have made all the difference.  It’s all very well to talk about educating yourself and rising in the world at the same time, but it can’t be done.  There’s a season for everything, and the best part of education must be over before you begin to fight for a position.  Otherwise the handicap is too heavy.”

His pity for himself became more poignant; yet still there was nothing weakening in it, at least nothing that tended to alter his determination.  “No,” he thought, “take me all round, I couldn’t originally have bin meant to turn out a wrong un.  I’ve never bin mean or sneaking or envious in my dealings with other people.  I’ve never spared myself to give a helping hand to those who treated me decently.  And no one will ever guess the kindly sentiments I entertained for many other men, or the pleasure I derived the few times I could feel:  ‘This chap is one I respect, and he seems to like me.’  I wanted to be liked, but the gift o’ making myself liked was denied me.  Yet, except for being cast down into sin, I should have got over that difficulty.  I was on the right road there too.  By enlarging my mind I’d become more sympathetic.  Though always a shy man really and truly, I was learning to smother the false effects of my shyness.”

Thinking thus of his mind, and his long-continued efforts to improve its powers, he felt:  “To go and extinguish all this is an awful thing to have to do.”

Still his determination was not altered.  The mystery of that great pageant, the mental life of William Dale, could not be permitted to unfold itself any further.  It must cease with a snap and a jerk, much as when the electric current becomes too strong for a small incandescent lamp and the bulb bursts, the filaments fuse, and all that the lamp was showing disappears in darkness.

Yes, darkness without a glimmer of hope.