I made no answer. I was too overcome by my own miserable sensations. I walked along almost unconscious of movement, and as I stared bewilderedly up at the stars they danced before my sight like fireflies whirling in a mist of miasma. Presently a faint hope occurred to me. "Perhaps," I said, "he has not really killed himself? It may be only an attempt?" "He was a capital shot"--returned Lucio composedly,--"That was his one quality. He has no principles,--but he was a good marksman. I cannot imagine his missing aim." "It is horrible! An hour ago alive, ... and now ... I tell you, Lucio, it is horrible!" "What is? Death? It is not half so horrible as Life lived wrongly,"--he responded, with a gravity that impressed me in spite of my emotion and excitement--"Believe me, the mental sickness and confusion of a wilfully degraded existence are worse tortures than are contained in the priestly notions of Hell. Come come, Geoffrey, you take this matter too much to heart,--you are not to blame. If Lynton has given himself the 'happy dispatch' it is really the best thing he could do,--he was of no use to anybody, and he is well out of it. It is positively weak of you to attach importance to such a trifle. You are only at the beginning of your career----" "Well, I hope that career will not lead me into any more such tragedies as the one enacted to-night,"--I said passionately--"If it does, it will be entirely against my will!" Lucio looked at me curiously. "Nothing can happen to you against your will"--he replied; "I suppose you wish to imply that I am to blame for introducing you to the club? My good fellow, you need not have gone there unless you had chosen to do so! I did not bind and drag you there! You are upset and unnerved,--come into my room and take a glass of wine,--you will feel more of a man afterwards." We had by this time reached the hotel, and I went with him passively. With equal passiveness I drank what he gave me, and stood, glass in hand, watching him with a kind of morbid fascination as he threw off his fur-lined overcoat and confronted me, his pale handsome face strangely set and stern, and his dark eyes glittering like cold steel. "That last stake of Lynton's, ... to you--" I said falteringly--"His soul----" "Which _he_ did not believe in, and which _you_ do not believe in!" returned Lucio, regarding me fixedly. "Why do you now seem to tremble at a mere sentimental idea? If fantastic notions such as God, the Soul, and the Devil were real facts, there would perhaps be cause for trembling, but being only the brainsick imaginations of superstitious mankind, there is nothing in them to awaken the slightest anxiety or fear." "But you"--I began--"you say you believe in the soul?"