"I must make my decision once for all," he said to himself. "I am wide awake; my whole intellectual nature is full of vigor; I have no excuse whatever; the matter must be finally settled now. If I follow the devil----" he shrank as the words formed themselves out of his brain; he had naturally the utmost loathing for evil in any form, his nature was meant to be upright; at school he had been one of the good boys; one of the boys to whom low vices, dishonorable actions of any kind, were simply impossible; he had had his weaknesses, for who has not?--but these weaknesses were all more or less akin to the virtues. "If I choose the devil!" he repeated. Once again he faltered, trembling violently; he had come to the part of the room where his father's old desk was situated, he leaned up against it and gazed gloomily out into the darkness which confronted him. "I know exactly what will happen if I follow the downward path," he said again. "I must force myself to think wrong right, and right wrong. There is no possible way for me to live this life of deception except by deceiving myself. Must I decide to-night?" He staggered into the chair which his father used to occupy. His father had been a man full of rectitude; the doom of the house had never overtaken him; he had been a man with an almost too severe and lofty code of honor. Awdrey remembered all about his father as he sat in that chair. He sprang again to his feet. "There is no use in putting off the hour, for the hour has come," he thought. "This is the state of the case. God and the devil are with me to-night. I cannot lie in the presence of such awful, such potent Forces. I must face the thing as it is. This is what has happened to me. I, who would not willingly in my sober senses, hurt the smallest insect that crawls on the earth, once, nearly six years ago, in a sudden moment of passion killed a man. He attacked me, and I defended myself. I killed him in self-defence. I no more meant to kill him than I mean to commit murder to-night. Notwithstanding that fact I did it. Doubtless the action came over me as a tremendous shock--immediately after the deed the doom of my house fell on me, and I forgot all about what I myself had done--for five years the memory of it never returned to me. Now I know all about it. At the present moment another man is suffering in my stead. Now if I follow the devil I shall be a brute and a scoundrel; the other man will go on suffering, and his mother, whose heart is already broken, may die before he recovers his liberty. Thus I shall practically kill two lives. No one will know--no one will guess that I am leading a shadowed life. I feel strong enough now to cover up the deed, to hide away the remorse. I feel not the least doubt that I shall be outwardly successful--the respect of my fellow-men will follow me--the love of many will be given to me. By and by I may have children, and they will love me as I loved my father, and Margaret will look up to me and