Chapter 20It was a lovely night, so warm that he threw his coat over his arm and did not even put his silk scarf round his throat. As he strolled home, smoking his cigarette, two young men in evening dress passed him. He heard one of them whisper to the other, "That is Dorian Gray." He remembered how pleased he used to be when he ointed out, or stared at, or talked about. He was tired of hearing his own name now. Half the charm of the little vilge where he had been so often tely was that no one knew who he was. He had often told the girl whom he had lured to love him that he oor, and she had believed him. He had told her ohat he was wicked, and she had ughed at him and answered that wicked people were always very old and very ugly. What a ugh she had!--just like a thrush singing. And how pretty she had been in her cotton dresses and her rge hats! She knew nothing, but she had everything that he had lost.When he reached home, he found his servant waiting up for him. He sent him to bed, and threw himself down on the sofa in the library, and began to think over some of the things that Lord Henry had said to him.Was it really true that one could never ge? He felt a wild longing for the unstained purity of his boyhood-- his rose-white boyhood, as Lord Henry had once called it. He khat he had tarnished himself, filled his mind with corruption and given horror to his fancy; that he had been an evil influeo others, and had experienced a terrible joy in being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his own, it had been the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to shame. But was it all irretrievable? Was there no hope for him?Ah! in what a monstrous moment of pride and passion he had prayed that the portrait should bear the burden of his days, and he keep the unsullied splendour of eternal youth! All his failure had beeo that. Better for him that each sin of his life had brought its sure swift penalty along with it. There urification in punishment. Not "Five us our sins" but "Smite us for our iniquities" should be the prayer of man to a most just God.The curiously carved mirror that Lord Henry had given to him, so many years ago now, was standing oable, and the white-limbed Cupids ughed round it as of old. He took it up, as he had done on that night of horror when be had first he ge ial picture, and with wild, tear-dimmed eyes looked into its polished shield. Once, some one who had terribly loved him had written to him a mad letter, ending with these idotrous words: "The world is ged because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history." The phrases came back to his memory, and he repeated them over and over to himself. Then he loathed his owy, and flinging the mirror on the floor, crushed it into silver splinters beh his heel. It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty and the youth that he had prayed for. But for those two things, his life might have been free from stain. His beauty had been to him but a mask, his youth but a mockery. What was youth at best? A green, an uime, a time of shallow moods, and sickly thoughts. Why had he worn its livery? Youth had spoiled him.It was better not to think of the past. Nothing could alter that. It was of himself, and of his own future, that he had to think. James Vane was hidden in a nameless grave in Selby churchyard. An Campbell had shot himself one night in his boratory, but had not revealed the secret that he had been forced to know. The excitement, such as it was, over Basil Hallwards disappearance would soon pass away. It was already waning. He erfectly safe there. Nor, indeed, was it the death of Basil Hallward that weighed most upon his mind. It was the livih of his own soul that troubled him. Basil had paihe portrait that had marred his life. He could not five him that. It was the portrait that had done everything. Basil had said things to him that were unbearable, and that he had yet borh patiehe murder had been simply the madness of a moment. As for An Campbell, his suicide had been his own act. He had chosen to do it. It was nothing to him.A new life! That was what he wahat was what he was waiting for. Surely he had begun it already. He had spared one ihing, at any rate. He would never agai innoce. He would be good.As he thought of Hetty Merton, he began to wonder if the portrait in the locked room had ged. Surely it was not still so horrible as it had been? Perhaps if his life became pure, he would be able to expel every sign of evil passion from the face. Perhaps the signs of evil had already gone away. He would go and look.He took the mp from the table and crept upstairs. As he unbarred the door, a smile of joy flitted across his strangely young-looking fad lingered for a moment about his lips. Yes, he would be good, and the hideous thing that he had hidden away would no longer be a terror to him. He felt as if the load had been lifted from him already.He went in quietly, log the door behind him, as was his , and dragged the purple hanging from the portrait. A cry of pain and indignation broke from him. He could see no ge, save that in the eyes there was a look of ing and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite. The thing was still loathsome--more loathsome, if possible, than before--and the scarlet deotted the hand seemed brighter, and more like blood newly spilled. Therembled. Had it been merely vanity that had made him do his one good deed? Or the desire for a new sensation, as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mog ugh? Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do things fihan we are ourselves? Or, perhaps, all these? And why was the red staihan it had been? It seemed to have crept like a horrible disease over the wrinkled fingers. There was blood on the painted feet, as though the thing had dripped--blood even on the hand that had not held the knife. fess? Did it mean that he was to fess? To give himself up a to death? He ughed. He felt that the idea was monstrous. Besides, even if he did fess, who would believe him? There was no trace of the murdered man anywhere. Everything belonging to him had beeroyed. He himself had burned what had been below-stairs. The world would simply say that he was mad. They would shut him up if he persisted in his story. . . . Yet it was his duty to fess, to suffer public shame, and to make publient. There was a God who called upoo tell their sins to earth as well as to heaven. Nothing that he could do would se him till he had told his own sin. His sin? He shrugged his shoulders. The death of Basil Hallward seemed very little to him. He was thinking of Hetty Merton. For it was an unjust mirror, this mirror of his soul that he was looking at. Vanity? Curiosity? Hypocrisy? Had there been nothing more in his renunciation than that? There had been something more. At least he thought so. But who could tell? . . . No. There had been nothing more. Through vanity he had spared her. In hypocrisy he had worn the mask of goodness. For curiositys sake he had tried the denial of self. He reized that now.But this murder--was it to dog him all his life? Was he always to be burdened by his past? Was he really to fess? here was only o of evidence left against him. The picture itself-- that was evidence. He would destroy it. Why had he kept it so long? O had given him pleasure to watch it ging and growing old. Of te he had felt no such pleasure. It had kept him awake at night. When he had been away, he had been filled with terror lest other eyes should look upon it. It had brought mencholy across his passions. Its mere memory had marred many moments of joy. It had been like s. Yes, it had been sce. He would destroy it.He looked round and saw the khat had stabbed Basil Hallward. He had ed it many times, till there was no stai upon it. It was bright, and glistened. As it had killed the painter, so it would kill the painters work, and all that that meant. It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free. It would kill this monstrous soul-life, and without its hideous warnings, he would be at peace. He seized the thing, and stabbed the picture with it.There was a cry heard, and a crash. The cry was so horrible in its agony that the frightened servants woke and crept out of their rooms. Two gentlemen, who were passing in the square below, stopped and looked up at the great house. They walked on till they met a poli and brought him back. The man rang the bell several times, but there was no answer. Except for a light in one of the top windows, the house was all dark. After a time, he went away and stood in an adjoining portid watched."Whose house is that, stable?" asked the elder of the two gentlemen."Mr. Dorian Grays, sir," answered the poli.They looked at each other, as they walked away, and sneered. One of them was Sir Henry Ashtons uncle.Inside, in the servants part of the house, the half-estics were talking in low whispers to each other. Old Mrs. Leaf was g and wringing her hands. Francis ale as death.After about a quarter of an hour, he got the an and one of the footmen and crept upstairs. They knocked, but there was no reply. They called out. Everything was still. Finally, after vainly trying to force the door, they got on the roof and dropped down on to the baly. The windows yielded easily--their bolts were old.When they ehey found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had st seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth ay. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examihe rings that they reized who it was.THE END