The Devil

Then he began to study his face in the glass. No one would have guessed that this was a man who had been praying all night. The whole face showed those signs of fatigue that come after base pleasures, after riotous waste of energy, after long hours of debauch. It seemed to him that his gray hair was finer of texture than it ought to be, hanging straight and thin, with no strength in it; that his eyes were too dim, that the flesh underneath them had puffed out loosely, and that his lower lip was drooping slackly--and he shuddered in disgust. It seemed to him that his face changed and grew uglier as he looked at it. It was becoming like an old man's face he had seen years ago.

In spite of the slight shakiness of his hand he managed to shave himself without a cut, and he was just about to wash the soap away when he heard a sound of lamentation on the lower floor. It was Norah loudly bewailing herself. Mavis had gone down-stairs and published his sentence of banishment.

Suppose that the girl betrayed their secret. Suppose that she was even now telling his wife what had happened in the wood. Well, he must go down to them and flatly deny whatever Norah said. But he tingled and grew hot with a most miserable shame; his heart quailed at the mere notion of the sickening, disgraceful character of such a scene--he, the highly respected Mr. Dale, the good upright religious man, being accused by a little servant girl and having to rebut her accusations in the presence of his wife.

He dipped his head in the basin, and even when under the cold water the tips of his ears seemed as if they were on fire. He must go down-stairs the moment he had cooled his face; but he would go as some wretched schoolboy goes to the headmaster's room when he guesses that his unforgivable beastliness has been discovered, and that first a thrashing and then expulsion are awaiting him.

Some of the lying words that he must utter suggested themselves. "Oh, Norah, this is a poor return you are making for all my kindness. Aren't you ashamed to stand there and tell such ungrateful false-hoods. Ma lass, your cheek surprises me. I wonder you can look me in the face."

But it would be Mavis, and not Norah, who would look him in the face--and she would read the truth there. She would see it staring at her in his shifting eyes, his slack lip, and his weak frown. Her first glance at him would be loyal and frank, just an eager flash of love and confidence, seeming to say, "Be quick, Will, and put your foot on this viper that we've both of us warmed, and that is trying to bite me;" then she would turn pale, avert her head, and drop upon a chair. And for why? Because she had seen the nauseating truth, and her heart was almost broken.