“Then give up Him. You have to choose between us. Would you offer me a share of your love—half for me, half for your fiend of a God? I will not take His leavings. If you are His, you are not mine.”
“Would you have me tear my heart in two? Arthur! Arthur! Do you want to drive me mad?”
The Gadfly struck his hand against the wall.
“You have to choose between us,” he repeated once more.
Montanelli drew from his breast a little case containing a bit of soiled and crumpled paper.
“Look!” he said.
“I believed in you, as I believed in God. God is a thing made of clay, that I can smash with a hammer; and you have fooled me with a lie.”
The Gadfly laughed and handed it back. “How d-d-delightfully young one is at nineteen! To take a hammer and smash things seems so easy. It's that now—only it's I that am under the hammer. As for you, there are plenty of other people you can fool with lies—and they won't even find you out.”
“As you will,” Montanelli said. “Perhaps in your place I should be as merciless as you—God knows. I can't do what you ask, Arthur; but I will do what I can. I will arrange your escape, and when you are safe I will have an accident in the mountains, or take the wrong sleeping-draught by mistake—whatever you like to choose. Will that content you? It is all I can do. It is a great sin; but I think He will forgive me. He is more merciful———”
The Gadfly flung out both hands with a sharp cry.