Head of Christ

Done?' he said, with a soulless sneer in the word. `Nothing intentionally. But you have been the means - the innocent means - of my backsliding, as they call it. I ask myself, am I, indeed, one of those "servants of corruption" who, "after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, are again entangled therein and overcome" - whose latter end is worse than their beginning?' He laid his hand on her shoulder. `Tess, my girl, I was on the way to, at least, social salvation till I saw you again!' he said freakishly shaking her, as if she were a child. `And why then have you tempted me? I was firm as a man could be till I saw those eyes and that mouth again - surely there never was such a maddening mouth since Eve's!' His voice sank, and a hot archness shot from his own black eyes. `You temptress, Tess; you dear damned witch of Babylon, - I could not resist you as soon as I met you again!'