第64章

"I am so sorry for you, Alan," he murmured, "but you leave me no alternative.I have a letter written already.Here it is.You see the address.If you don't help me, I must send it.If you don't help me, Iwill send it.You know what the result will be.But you are going to help me.It is impossible for you to refuse now.I tried to spare you.You will do me the justice to admit that.You were stern, harsh, offensive.You treated me as no man has ever dared to treat me--no living man, at any rate.I bore it all.Now it is for me to dictate terms."Campbell buried his face in his hands, and a shudder passed through him.

"Yes, it is my turn to dictate terms, Alan.You know what they are.The thing is quite simple.Come, don't work yourself into this fever.

The thing has to be done.Face it, and do it."A groan broke from Campbell's lips and he shivered all over.The ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to him to be dividing time into separate atoms of agony, each of which was too terrible to be borne.

He felt as if an iron ring was being slowly tightened round his forehead, as if the disgrace with which he was threatened had already come upon him.

The hand upon his shoulder weighed like a hand of lead.It was intolerable.

It seemed to crush him.

"Come, Alan, you must decide at once."

"I cannot do it," he said, mechanically, as though words could alter things.

"You must.You have no choice.Don't delay."He hesitated a moment."Is there a fire in the room upstairs?""Yes, there is a gas-fire with asbestos.""I shall have to go home and get some things from the laboratory.""No, Alan, you must not leave the house.Write out on a sheet of notepaper what you want and my servant will take a cab and bring the things back to you."Campbell scrawled a few lines, blotted them, and addressed an envelope to his assistant.Dorian took the note up and read it carefully.

Then he rang the bell and gave it to his valet, with orders to return as soon as possible and to bring the things with him.

As the hall door shut, Campbell started nervously, and having got up from the chair, went over to the chimney-piece.He was shivering with a kind of ague.For nearly twenty minutes, neither of the men spoke.

A fly buzzed noisily about the room, and the ticking of the clock was like the beat of a hammer.

As the chime struck one, Campbell turned round, and looking at Dorian Gray, saw that his eyes were filled with tears.There was something in the purity and refinement of that sad face that seemed to enrage him.

"You are infamous, absolutely infamous!" he muttered.

"Hush, Alan.You have saved my life," said Dorian.

"Your life? Good heavens! what a life that is! You have gone from corruption to corruption, and now you have culminated in crime.In doing what I am going to do--what you force me to do-- it is not of your life that I am thinking.""Ah, Alan," murmured Dorian with a sigh, "I wish you had a thousandth part of the pity for me that I have for you." He turned away as he spoke and stood looking out at the garden.Campbell made no answer.

After about ten minutes a knock came to the door, and the servant entered, carrying a large mahogany chest of chemicals, with a long coil of steel and platinum wire and two rather curiously shaped iron clamps.

"Shall I leave the things here, sir?" he asked Campbell.

"Yes," said Dorian."And I am afraid, Francis, that I have another errand for you.What is the name of the man at Richmond who supplies Selby with orchids?""Harden, sir."