“I cannot stop here, and I can never come back here,” said Douglas. “The place--how shall I say it--is saturated.”
“I think your attitude requires explanation,” he said. “Is Capri saturated too?”
“My attitude is perfectly simple,” he said. “For twelve years the worship of evil has been my spiritual life, and last night my eyes were opened to what I have been. Whether I can find salvation I don’t know, but what I can do is to hate and loathe myself, and break off all connection with those who are as I have been.”
“Ah, now we’re getting at it,” said Colin. “The saturation you speak of--I am the saturator, I perceive. Is that it?”
“Yes: you and the evil which you worship.”
Colin’s blue eyes were still smiling and kind.
“I think you’re inconsistent,” he said. “Shouldn’t the zeal of the convert inspire you to missionary work? A brand plucked from the burning ought surely to want to spoil the fire by pulling out another brand.”
“Yes. You have a power for evil that is terrible. The legend is true: I can’t stand up against you. And yet....”
“It’s this, and these are my last words to you. I have watched you this last month, and you have changed. At least there is the shadow of change over you. Till last night you have never come to the chapel, and last night I could feel that you felt no true devotion. If I could hope to assist that change, I might stop, but it has nothing to do with me. You have let love approach you.... Dennis.... He loves you as you know very well, and there is something in you, crush and throttle it as you will, which goes out to him.”
Colin suddenly shot out his hand at him. Never, not even in the days of Raymond, had he known so blistering and undiluted a stream of hate flood his soul. This man, with whom he had been knit in the worship of evil, not only had thrown it and him aside, but he had seen and spoken of that which, like a disgrace, he had tried to cover up and excuse from himself.
“That’s enough!” he said. “And let me tell you that you never spoke words more ill-advised for your purpose than these. It’s the truth in them that damns them. Do you think I don’t know that as well as you? And don’t you see that if anything was wanted to encourage me to root that change out of my heart, it would be that you, you trembling renegade, should tell me of its shadow lying on me?”