free.

* * * * *

Ah, I see something now! I see! it was for this that I was preserved: I
to be a sort of new-fangled Adam--and this little creature to be my Eve!
That is it! _The White_ does not admit defeat: he would recommence the
Race again! At the last, the eleventh hour--in spite of all--he would
turn defeat into victory, and outwit that Other.

However, if this be so--and I seem to see it quite clearly--then in that
White scheme is a singular flaw: at _one point_, it is obvious, that
elaborate Forethought fails: for I have a free will--and I refuse, I
refuse.

Certainly, in this matter I am on the side of the Black: and since it
depends absolutely upon me, this time Black wins.

No more men on the earth after me, ye Powers! To _you_ the question may
be nothing more than a gambling excitement as to the final outcome of
your aërial squabble: but to the poor men who had to bear the wrongs,
Inquisitions, rack-rents, Waterloos, unspeakable horrors, it was hard
earnest, you know! Oh the wretchedness--the deep, deep pain--of that
bungling ant-hill, happily wiped out, my God! My sweetheart Clodagh ...
she was not an ideal being! There was a man called Judas who betrayed
the gentle Founder of the Christian Faith, and there was some Roman king
named Galba, a horrid dog, and there was a French devil, Gilles de Raiz:
and the rest were all much the same, much the same. Oh no, it was not a
good race, that small infantry which called itself Man: and here,
falling on my knees before God and Satan as I write, I swear, I swear: