The Devil

Dale had no real fear of death--nor even fear of the gallows. If the worst came, he could face death bravely. He was quite sure of that. Then, as he told himself thousands of times, it was absurd to be so shaken by terror. Terror of what? And he thought, "It is because of the uncertainty. But there too, how absurdly fullish I am; for there is no real uncertainty. My crime can not and will not be discovered. If I were to go now and accuse myself, people would not credit me."

He thought also, in intervals between the paroxysms, "I suppose what I've been feeling is what all murderers feel. It is this that makes men go and give themselves up to the police after they have got off scot free. They are safe, but they never can believe they're safe; they can't stand the strain, and if they didn't stop it, they'd go mad. So they give themselves up--just go get a bit o' quiet. And that is what I shall do, if this goes on much longer. I'd sooner be turned off short and sharp with a broken neck than die of exhaustion in a padded cell."

Then suddenly chance gave the hateful money an immense value, converted it into a means of escape from the outer life whose monotony and narrowness were assisting the cruelly wide inner life to drive him mad.

He went to Vine-Pits, and the strangeness of his surroundings, the difficulties, the hard work, produced a salutary effect upon him; but most of all he drew strength and courage from the renewal of love between Mavis and himself. That was most wonderful--like a new birth, rather than a reanimation. They loved each other as a freshly married couple, as a boy and girl who have just returned from their honeymoon, and who say, "We shall feel just the same when the time comes to keep our silver wedding."

So he toiled comfortably, almost happily. Mavis was perfectly happy, and he found increasing solace in the knowledge of this fact.

Thence onward his busy days were free from fear, except for the transient panics which, as he surmised, he would be subject to for the remainder of his life. They did not matter, because he could control them to the extent of preventing the slightest outward manifestation. All at once while transacting business he would feel the inward collapse, deadly cold, a sensation that his intestines had been changed from close-knitted substance to water; and he would think "This person"--a farmer, a servant, old Mr. Bates, anybody--"suspects my secret. He guessed it a long while ago. Or he has just discovered the proofs of guilt." Nevertheless he went on talking in exactly the same tone of voice, without a contraction of a single facial muscle, with nothing at all shown unless perhaps a bead of perspiration on his forehead.