A cold rain began to fall, and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly in the dripping mist.

The public-houses were just closing, and dim men and women were clustering in broken groups round their doors.

From some of the bars came the sound of horrible laughter.

In others, drunkards brawled and screamed.
Lying back in the hansom, with his hat pulled over his forehead, Dorian Gray watched with listless eyes the sordid shame of the great city, and now and then he repeated to himself the words that Lord Henry had said to him on the first day they had met, "To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul." Yes, that was the secret.

He had often tried it, and would try it again now.