You don't even deceive yourself, not
for three minutes at a stretch. You know that underneath all your
humbugging pretenses the black sin is unchanged. You are no better and
no worse than I was. You are exactly the same as me."
And Dale, breaking his own rule, or forgetting in his anger that he
had refused to discuss things with this imaginary voice, answered
wrathfully.
"This girl cares for me--that's the difference between us. She offers
me love. And that's something you never had."
"How do you know?" said the dead man. "Your Mavis was one of many.
And, besides, don't be so sure that Mavis wasn't fond of me. She never
ran away from me. She came when I whistled for her."
Dale brandished his arms wildly, turned round, and stared at the
pine-trees and the bracken. It seemed to him that some imperishable
essence of the man was really here, mingling with the shadows,
floating in the dusky air; and that possibly over there among the
rocks, if one went to look for it, one might see a simulacrum of the
man's bodily shape--perhaps only a gray shadowy outlined form, the
odious stranger of dreams, but more vague than in the dreams,
stretched on his back, holding up his blood-stained boots, and
grinning all over his battered face.
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