“What now do you feel, Maskull? What do you see?” inquired Tydomin anxiously.
He stopped, and stared hard at her. “I now see straight,” he said slowly.
“What does that mean?”
He continued to wipe the blood from his forehead. He looked troubled. “Henceforward, as long as I live, I shall fight with my nature, and refuse to feel pleasure. And I advise you to do the same.”
Spadevil gazed at him sternly. “Do you renounce my teaching?”
Maskull, however, returned the gaze without dismay. Spadevil’s image-like clearness of form had departed for him; his frowning face he knew to be the deceptive portico of a weak and confused intellect.
“It is false.”
“Is it false to sacrifice oneself for another?” demanded Tydomin.
“I can’t argue as yet,” said Maskull. “At this moment the world with its sweetness seems to me a sort of charnel house. I feel a loathing for everything in it, including myself. I know no more.”
“Is there no duty?” asked Spadevil, in a harsh tone.