“Murder!  Good God, Dorian, is that what you have come to?  I shall not inform upon you.  It is not my business.  Besides, you are certain to be arrested, without my stirring in the matter.  Nobody ever commits a murder without doing something stupid.  But I will have nothing to do with it.”

“All I ask of you is to perform a certain scientific experiment.  You go to hospitals and dead-houses, and the horrors that you do there don’t affect you.  If in some hideous dissecting-room or fetid laboratory you found this man lying on a leaden table with red gutters scooped out in it, you would simply look upon him as an admirable subject.  You would not turn a hair.  You would not believe that you were doing anything wrong.  On the contrary, you would probably feel that you were benefiting the human race, or increasing the sum of knowledge in the world, or gratifying intellectual curiosity, or something of that kind.  What I want you to do is simply what you have often done before.  Indeed, to destroy a body must be less horrible than what you are accustomed to work at.  And, remember, it is the only piece of evidence against me.  If it is discovered, I am lost; and it is sure to be discovered unless you help me.”

[91] “I have no desire to help you.  You forget that.  I am simply indifferent to the whole thing.  It has nothing to do with me.”

“Alan, I entreat you.  Think of the position I am in.  Just before you came I almost fainted with terror.  No! don’t think of that.  Look at the matter purely from the scientific point of view.  You don’t inquire where the dead things on which you experiment come from.  Don’t inquire now.  I have told you too much as it is.  But I beg of you to do this.  We were friends once, Alan.”

“Don’t speak about those days, Dorian:  they are dead.”

“The dead linger sometimes.  The man up-stairs will not go away.  He is sitting at the table with bowed head and outstretched arms.  Alan!  Alan! if you don’t come to my assistance I am ruined.  Why, they will hang me, Alan!  Don’t you understand?  They will hang me for what I have done.”

“There is no good in prolonging this scene.  I refuse absolutely to do anything in the matter.  It is insane of you to ask me.”

“You refuse absolutely?”

“Yes.”

The same look of pity came into Dorian’s eyes, then he stretched out his hand, took a piece of paper, and wrote something on it.  He read it over twice, folded it carefully, and pushed it across the table.  Having done this, he got up, and went over to the window.

Campbell looked at him in surprise, and then took up the paper, and opened it.  As he read it, his face became ghastly pale, and he fell back in his chair.  A horrible sense of sickness came over him.  He felt as if his heart was beating itself to death in some empty hollow.

After two or three minutes of terrible silence, Dorian turned round, and came and stood behind him, putting his hand upon his shoulder.