"Here, within measurable distance of dissolution, I grow somewhat weary of _perhaps_. Yet I deserve that you should answer me this, since I have shown myself very weak. I had not courage to embrace the remarkable opportunity of investigating the phenomena of which we have spoken when it was offered me in my prime. Now, in my decadence, surreptitiously and at second hand, I try to acquire the knowledge I then repudiated. I clutch at straws, and the straws sink with me. It is just. For the second time I am untrue to my principles. I accept the rebuke." During the last half hour there had been a lull in the storm; but now the wind, shifting to a point north of west, hurled itself against the house-front with renewed fury, and screamed against the shuddering casements as though determined to gain entrance. The effect was that of personal violence intended, and, with difficulty, repulsed. To Laurence an inrush of the tempest would have been hardly unwelcome, for the heat of the atmosphere oppressed him to the point of distress. Nor was this all. Once more he became aware, so it seemed to him, of the tremendous, unseen presence with which he had struggled earlier this same evening in the yellow drawing-room below. He was aware that it stood on the far side of the great, ebony bed, waiting, and the young man's heart stood still. He saw Mr. Rivers gather the sable cape more closely about him, as he lay staring out into the austere yet luxurious room; and he recognised that for all his mortal weakness there was a certain magnificence in the dying man's aspect. "And beyond the superb, and always unredeemed, promise of human life, a blank," Mr. Rivers said at last, his voice hollow, and, though so small, asserting itself strangely against the tumult of the storm. "Reason, learning, the senses, carry us thus far, only to project us against a gateless barrier at the last!" But Laurence's whole nature arose in fierce revolt. Again he renewed that awful struggle, but this time in articulate speech. "No, no, sir," he cried sharply, authoritatively, "the barrier is not gateless--that is, to any one of us who has ever, even dimly and passingly, known true-love, and that of which true-love is the everlasting exponent and blessed symbol, namely, Almighty God." "And I have known neither," Mr. Rivers answered. "Love I have never felt. God I have never needed, either as an object of worship, or as incentive to prayer. Therefore, for me, on your own showing, the barrier needs must remain gateless." He bowed his head slightly, smiling upon the young man with a fine, ironical courtesy. "I will ask your pardon for any weariness I may have caused you, Laurence," he added. "And now I think we have nothing further to say to one another. I have no quarrel with your fulfilment of your part of the contract. It has been only--possibly--too complete. So I will detain you no longer. You can leave me. I bid you good-night."