“Well, profanity is vulgar!  As to my being the Devil, it is too dark here for either denial or acknowledgment to be of practical use.  But (to be serious)—­about this secret—­”

The voice paused interrogatively.  Lucifer, speaking through Helwyse’s lips, demanded sullenly,—­

“Well, what is the secret?”

What, indeed!  Why, there is no such secret;—­it is a bugbear!  But the moral perversion of the person who could soberly ask the question that Helwyse asked is not so easily disposed of.  It met, indeed, with full recognition.  As for the subtile voice, having accomplished its main purpose, it began now to evade the point and to run into digressions; until the collision came, and ended the conversation forever.

“Unfortunately,” said the voice, “the secret is not such as may be told in a word.  Like all profound knowledge, it can only be communicated by leading the learner, step by step, over the ground traversed by the original discoverer.  Let me, as a sort of preliminary, suppose a case.”

Hereupon ensued a considerable silence, and Helwyse seemed once more a detached atom, flying through infinite darkness without guide or control.  Where was he?—­what was he?  Did the world exist,—­the broad earth, the sunny sky, the beauty, the sound, the order and sweet succession of nature?  Was he a shadow that had dreamed for a moment a strange dream, and would anon be quenched, and know what had seemed Self no more?  Strangely, through the doubt and uncertainty, Helwyse felt the pressure of his shoulders against the cabin wall, and the touch of the dead cigar between his fingers.

The voice, resuming, restored him to a reality that seemed less trustworthy than the doubt.  The tone was not quite the same as heretofore.  The smooth mocking had given place to a hurried excitement, alien to the philosophic temperament.

“A man kidnaps the child of his enemy, through the child to revenge himself.  Kill it?—­no! he is no short-sighted bungler; he has refinement, foresight, understanding.  She is but an infant,—­open and impressible, warm and sanguine!  He isolates her from sight and reach.  He pries into her nature with keenest delicacy,—­no leaf is unread.  Being learnt, he works upon it; touches each budding trait with gentlest impulse.  No violence! he seems to leave her to her own development; yet nothing goes against his will.  More than half is left to nature, but his scarce perceptible touches bias nature.  Ah! the idealization of education!”

“This sounds more real than hypothetical!” thought Helwyse.

“So cunning was he, he reversed in her mind the universal law.  Evil was good; good, evil.  She grew fast and strong, for evil is the sweeter food; it is rich earth to the plant.  She never knew that evil existed, yet evil was all she knew!  For whatever is forced reacts; he never taught her positive sin, lest she perversely turn to good.”

“Did he mean insensibly to initiate her into the knowledge of absolute sin?”