Confess? Did it mean that he was to confess? To give himself up,
and be put to death? He laughed. He felt that the idea was
monstrous. Besides, who would believe him, even if he did confess?
There was no trace of the murdered man anywhere. Everything
belonging to him had been destroyed. He himself had burned what had
been below-stairs. The world would simply say he was mad. They
would shut him up if he persisted in his story.
Yet it was his duty to confess, to suffer public shame, and to make
public atonement. There was a God who called upon men to tell their
sins to earth as well as to heaven. Nothing that he could do would
cleanse 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.
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?
And this murder,--was it to dog him all his life? Was he never to
get rid of the past? Was he really to confess? No. There was only
one bit of evidence left against him. The picture itself,--that was
evidence.
He would destroy it. Why had he kept it so long? It had given him
pleasure once to watch it changing and growing old. Of late 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 melancholy across his passions. Its mere
memory had marred many moments of joy. It had been like conscience
to him. Yes, it had been conscience. He would destroy it.
He looked round, and saw the knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward.
He had cleaned it many times, till there was no stain left upon it.
It was bright, and glistened. As it had killed the painter, so it
would kill the painter's work, and all that that meant. It
would kill the past, and when that was dead he would be free. He
seized it, and stabbed the canvas with it, ripping the thing right up
from top to bottom.
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
policeman, and brought him back. The man rang the bell several
times, but there was no answer. The house was all dark, except for a
light in one of the top windows. After a time, he went away, and
stood in the portico of the next house and watched.
"Whose house is that, constable?" asked the elder of the two
gentlemen.
"Mr. Dorian Gray's, sir," answered the policeman.
They looked at each other, as they walked away, and sneered. One of
them was Sir Henry Ashton's uncle.
Inside, in the servants' part of the house, the half-clad domestics
were talking in low whispers to each other. Old Mrs. Leaf was
crying, and wringing her hands. Francis was as pale as death.
After about a quarter of an hour, he got the coachman and one of the
footmen and crept up-stairs. 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
balcony.
