Table of Contents
This was the man that Dorian Gray was waiting for, pacing up and down the room, glancing every moment at the clock, and becoming horribly agitated as the minutes went by. At last the door opened, and his servant entered.
"Mr. Alan Campbell, sir."
A sigh of relief broke from his parched lips, and the color came back to his cheeks.
"Ask him to come in at once, Francis."
The man bowed, and retired. In a few moments Alan Campbell walked in, looking very stern and rather pale, his pallor being intensified by his coal–black hair and dark eyebrows.
"Alan! this is kind of you. I thank you for coming."
"I had intended never to enter your house again, Gray. But you said it was a matter of life and death." His voice was hard and cold. He spoke with slow deliberation. There was a look of contempt in the steady searching gaze that he turned on Dorian. He kept his hands in the pockets of his Astrakhan coat, and appeared not to have noticed the gesture with which he had been greeted.
"It is a matter of life and death, Alan, and to more than one person. Sit down."
Campbell took a chair by the table, and Dorian sat opposite to him. The two men's eyes met. In Dorian's there was infinite pity. He knew that what he was going to do was dreadful.