The Will and the Way by Bernard Capes — Read

For one moment, during his last-related interview with Ruby, Luke Redding had feared that the girl had in actual fact put herself into communication with Le Strang. That fear laid, and the possibility of its recurrence barred, as he thought, for ever, he gave himself no more concern about the man. His experience, both private and professional, argued against any further interference from that quarter. Empty threats were the common resource of the disappointed cadger, and he could afford, with a full confidence, to laugh at these. The one victim secured to him in her inseverable toil's, his position was simply unassailable. For the rest, his business now lay in gradually, and with infinite finesse and subtlety, so removing those toils, strand by strand and replacing them by others less galling and more seductive, as to charm the eased soul into reconciliation with its bondage.

He never had a doubt as to his capacity for this task. An abnormal egotism is one characteristic of lunacy; and what, after all, is a soul possessed by evil but the soul of a lunatic? It has lost its dual personality, which is the safeguard of humankind. Luke loved himself so entirely that even his own worst acts appeared to himself most lovably forgivable. He could not believe in others remaining long adamant to the charms which were so patent to Luke Redding.