Strona 480 z 490

When he reached home, he found his servant waiting up for him. He

sent him to bed, and threw himself down on the sofa in the

library, and began to think over some of the things that Lord

Henry had said to him.

Was it really true that one could never change? He felt a wild

longing for the unstained purity of his boyhood-his rose-white

boyhood, as Lord Henry had once called it. He knew that he had

tarnished himself, filled his mind with corruption and given

horror to his fancy; that he had been an evil influence to

others, and had experienced a terrible joy in being so; and that

of the lives that had crossed his own, it had been the fairest

and the most full of promise that he had brought to shame. But

was it all irretrievable? Was there no hope for him?