Douglas hesitated.
“I am afraid,” he said.
“Not of me?” asked Colin.
“Yes. You have a power for evil that is terrible. The legend is true: I can’t stand up against you. And yet....”
“Go on,” said Colin.
“It’s this, and these are my last words to you. I have watched you this last month, and you have changed. At least there is the shadow of change over you. Till last night you have never come to the chapel, and last night I could feel that you felt no true devotion. If I could hope to assist that change, I might stop, but it has nothing to do with me. You have let love approach you.... Dennis.... He loves you as you know very well, and there is something in you, crush and throttle it as you will, which goes out to him.”
Colin suddenly shot out his hand at him. Never, not even in the days of Raymond, had he known so blistering and undiluted a stream of hate flood his soul. This man, with whom he had been knit in the worship of evil, not only had thrown it and him aside, but he had seen and spoken of that which, like a disgrace, he had tried to cover up and excuse from himself.
“That’s enough!” he said. “And let me tell you that you never spoke words more ill-advised for your purpose than these. It’s the truth in them that damns them. Do you think I don’t know that as well as you? And don’t you see that if anything was wanted to encourage me to root that change out of my heart, it would be that you, you trembling renegade, should tell me of its shadow lying on me?”
He came close up to him again; there was not much of a smile in his eyes now, and he spoke with a cold and deadly concentration.
“I know that I’ve been weak,” he said, “and it’s a tonic you’ve given me for my weakness. There’ll be no more complaint of my lack of fervour: what has frightened you has put resolve and courage into me. You, and your truckling submission! Why, I shall hear of you teaching in a Sunday school next. Perhaps you’d like Dennis to come and sit under you. I’ll wring the weakness out of my heart as you wring the last drop of moisture from a wet cloth, and out of Dennis’s heart I’ll pluck the weeds of love and plant the flowers of hate there, thick as the spring daffodils on the hill-side.”