Hetty had seen death before; its aspect was too unmistakable for her not to recognize it again. She fell suddenly forward, putting out the candle as she did so. Her face, almost as white as the face of the dead man, was pressed against his breast. For a brief few moments she was unconscious.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The twilight darkened into night, but Awdrey still remained in the office. After a time he groped for a box of matches, found one, struck a match, took a pair of heavy silver candlesticks from a cupboard in the wall, lit the candles which were in them, and then put them on his office table. The room was a large one, and the light of the two candles seemed only to make the darkness visible. Awdrey went to the table, seated himself in the old chair which his father and his grandfather had occupied before him, and began mechanically to arrange some papers, and put a pile of other things in order. His nature was naturally full of system; from his childhood up he had hated untidiness of all sorts. While he was so engaged there came a knock at the office door. He rose, went across the room, and opened it; a footman stood without.
"Mrs. Awdrey has sent me to ask you, sir, if you are ready for dinner."
"Tell your mistress that I am not coming in to dinner," replied Awdrey. "Ask her not to wait for me; I am particularly busy, and will have something later."
The man, with an immovable countenance, turned away. Awdrey once more locked the office door. He now drew down the remaining blinds to the other two windows, and began to pace up and down the long room. The powers of good and evil were at this moment fighting for his soul—he knew it; there was a tremendous conflict raging within him; it seemed to tear his life in two; beads of perspiration stood on his brow. He knew that either the God who made him or the devil would have won the victory before he left that room.
"I must make my decision once for all," he said to himself. "I am wide awake; my whole intellectual nature is full of vigor; I have no excuse whatever; the matter must be finally settled now. If I follow the devil——" he shrank as the words formed themselves out of his brain; he had naturally the utmost loathing for evil in any form, his nature was meant to be upright; at school he had been one of the good boys; one of the boys to whom low vices, dishonorable actions of any kind, were simply impossible; he had had his weaknesses, for who has not?—but these weaknesses were all more or less akin to the virtues.
"If I choose the devil!" he repeated. Once again he faltered, trembling violently; he had come to the part of the room where his father's old desk was situated, he leaned up against it and gazed gloomily out into the darkness which confronted him.
"I know exactly what will happen if I follow the downward path," he said again. "I must force myself to think wrong right, and right wrong. There is no possible way for me to live this life of deception except by deceiving myself. Must I decide to-night?"