He strode a few paces up the room and back, and his figure seemed to grow before Henrietta’s very eyes in his exultation over his victory. As he turned back his gaze fell upon the terrified girl at whose need he had sprung, with mighty effort, into final, lasting dominance.
“Don’t be frightened,” he said gently, leaning toward her with outstretched, reassuring hand. “You called me, and I came—came to help you, to save you, and to love you. You have nothing to fear now. That incarnate baseness has sunk down, down, too deep for resurrection! He shall never return!”
“Hugh! Hugh!” she quavered. “What have you done with him? Where is he?”
Upon Gordon’s exultant countenance there fell a shade of solemnity. “I know not,” he replied in awed tones. “What has become of him is one of the mysteries of the human soul, a mystery whose beginning and whose growth I understand, as you shall too, but whose end no man can explain. The man whom you knew, whom everyone knew, who knew himself, as Felix Brand, is no more. He will never exist again.
“Deliberately that man chose the worse side of his nature and cherished it and tried to ignore and cast out the other, the better side. But, deep down within him, that other side lived and grew strong, until it was strong enough to take possession of his body and cast him out. He is gone!” Gordon’s voice rose again into triumphal tones. “He has dropped into an oblivion man’s thought cannot fathom nor man’s brain understand. He ordained his own destiny, he worked out his own fate. Let him have the end that he himself invited!”
Gordon ceased speaking and leaned toward Henrietta. The terror had left her countenance and in her eyes was the dawning of renewed trust in him.
“Come,” he said, “let us leave this place, with all of its wretched memories.”
And he took her hand and led her forth.