A low moan broke from her, and she flung herself at his feet and lay there like a trampled flower.  “Dorian, Dorian, don’t leave me!” she whispered.  “I am so sorry I didn’t act well.  I was thinking of you all the time.  But I will try—­indeed, I will try.  It came so suddenly across me, my love for you.  I think I should never have known it if you had not kissed me—­ if we had not kissed each other.  Kiss me again, my love.  Don’t go away from me.  I couldn’t bear it.  Oh! don’t go away from me.  My brother . . .  No; never mind.  He didn’t mean it.  He was in jest. . . .  But you, oh! can’t you forgive me for to-night?  I will work so hard and try to improve.  Don’t be cruel to me, because I love you better than anything in the world.  After all, it is only once that I have not pleased you.  But you are quite right, Dorian.  I should have shown myself more of an artist.  It was foolish of me, and yet I couldn’t help it.  Oh, don’t leave me, don’t leave me.”  A fit of passionate sobbing choked her.  She crouched on the floor like a wounded thing, and Dorian Gray, with his beautiful eyes, looked down at her, and his chiselled lips curled in exquisite disdain.  There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.  Sibyl Vane seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic.  Her tears and sobs annoyed him.

“I am going,” he said at last in his calm clear voice. 
“I don’t wish to be unkind, but I can’t see you again. 
You have disappointed me.”

She wept silently, and made no answer, but crept nearer. 
Her little hands stretched blindly out, and appeared to be
seeking for him.  He turned on his heel and left the room. 
In a few moments he was out of the theatre.

Where he went to he hardly knew.  He remembered wandering through dimly lit streets, past gaunt, black-shadowed archways and evil-looking houses.  Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after him.  Drunkards had reeled by, cursing and chattering to themselves like monstrous apes.  He had seen grotesque children huddled upon door-steps, and heard shrieks and oaths from gloomy courts.

As the dawn was just breaking, he found himself close to Covent Garden.  The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed itself into a perfect pearl.  Huge carts filled with nodding lilies rumbled slowly down the polished empty street.  The air was heavy with the perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an anodyne for his pain.  He followed into the market and watched the men unloading their waggons.  A white-smocked carter offered him some cherries.  He thanked him, wondered why he refused to accept any money for them, and began to eat them listlessly.  They had been plucked at midnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them.  A long line of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of yellow and red roses, defiled in front of him, threading