“Is Zenobia to take a part in your enterprise?” I asked.

“She is,” said Hollingsworth.

“She!—­the beautiful!—­the gorgeous!” I exclaimed.  “And how have you prevailed with such a woman to work in this squalid element?”

“Through no base methods, as you seem to suspect,” he answered; “but by addressing whatever is best and noblest in her.”

Hollingsworth was looking on the ground.  But, as he often did so,—­ generally, indeed, in his habitual moods of thought,—­I could not judge whether it was from any special unwillingness now to meet my eyes.  What it was that dictated my next question, I cannot precisely say.  Nevertheless, it rose so inevitably into my mouth, and, as it were, asked itself so involuntarily, that there must needs have been an aptness in it.

“What is to become of Priscilla?”

Hollingsworth looked at me fiercely, and with glowing eyes.  He could not have shown any other kind of expression than that, had he meant to strike me with a sword.

“Why do you bring in the names of these women?” said he, after a moment of pregnant silence.  “What have they to do with the proposal which I make you?  I must have your answer!  Will you devote yourself, and sacrifice all to this great end, and be my friend of friends forever?”

“In Heaven’s name, Hollingsworth,” cried I, getting angry, and glad to be angry, because so only was it possible to oppose his tremendous concentrativeness and indomitable will, “cannot you conceive that a man may wish well to the world, and struggle for its good, on some other plan than precisely that which you have laid down?  And will you cast off a friend for no unworthiness, but merely because he stands upon his right as an individual being, and looks at matters through his own optics, instead of yours?”

“Be with me,” said Hollingsworth, “or be against me!  There is no third choice for you.”

“Take this, then, as my decision,” I answered.  “I doubt the wisdom of your scheme.  Furthermore, I greatly fear that the methods by which you allow yourself to pursue it are such as cannot stand the scrutiny of an unbiassed conscience.”

“And you will not join me?”

“No!”

I never said the word—­and certainly can never have it to say hereafter—­that cost me a thousandth part so hard an effort as did that one syllable.  The heart-pang was not merely figurative, but an absolute torture of the breast.  I was gazing steadfastly at Hollingsworth.  It seemed to me that it struck him, too, like a bullet.  A ghastly paleness—­always so terrific on a swarthy face—­overspread his features.  There was a convulsive movement of his throat, as if he were forcing down some words that struggled and fought for utterance.  Whether words of anger, or words of grief, I cannot tell; although many and many a time I have vainly tormented myself with conjecturing which of the two they were.  One other appeal to my friendship,—­such as once, already, Hollingsworth had made,—­taking me in the revulsion that followed a strenuous exercise of opposing will, would completely have subdued me.  But he left the matter there.  “Well!” said he.