IT hung there precariously. All through the mass that morning Raymond's eyes had kept straying to the great cross on the wall that old Mother Blondin had disturbed the night before. No one else, it was true, had appeared to notice it; but, having no reason to do so, no one else, very probably, had given it any particular attention—nevertheless, a single strand of cord on one end of the horizontal beam was all that now prevented the cross from pitching outward from the wall and crashing down into the body of the church.
The door of the sacristy leading into the chancel was open, and, in the sacristy now, Raymond's eyes fixed uneasily again on the huge, squared timbers of the cross. The support at the base held the weight of course, but the balance and adjustment was gone, and the slightest jar would be all that was necessary to snap that remaining cord above. Massive and unwieldy, the cross itself must be at least seven feet in height; and, though this was of course imagination, it seemed to waver there now ominously, as if to impress upon him the fact that in the cause of its insecurity he was not without a personal responsibility.
He had removed his surplice and stole; Gauthier Beaulieu, the altar boy, had gone; and there was only old Narcisse Pélude, the aged sacristan, who was still puttering about the room. And the church was empty now, save that he could still hear Valérie moving around up there in the little organ loft.
Raymond passed his hand wearily across his eyes. He was very tired. Valérie was lingering intentionally—and he knew why. He had not returned to thepresbytère, his bed had not been slept in. Valérie and her mother could not have helped but discover that, and they would be anxious, and worried, and perhaps a little frightened—and that was why Valérie was lingering now, waiting for him. He had not dared to leave old Mother Blondin alone through the night. She had been very ill. And he had not gone to any one near at hand, to Madame Bouchard, for instance, to get her to take his place, for that would have entailed explanations which, not on his own account, but for old Mother Blondin's sake, he had not cared to make; and so, when the bell for mass had rung that morning, he had still been at the bedside of the old woman on the hill. And he had left her only then because she was sleeping quietly, and the immediate crisis seemed safely past.
Raymond's eyes, from the cross, rested speculatively for a moment on the bent figure of the aged sacristan. He could make those explanations to Valérie, he could go out there now and in a sort of timely corroboration of the story repair the damage done to the cross, and she would understand; but he could not publicly make those explanations. If it was to be known in the village that old Mother Blondin had come here to the church, it was for old Mother Blondin herself, and for no one else, to tell it. It was the same attitude he had adopted toward her once before. True, Mother Blondin had changed very greatly since then; but a tactless word from any one, a sneer, the suggestion of triumph over her, and the old sullen defiance might well rise supreme again—and old Mother Blondin, he knew now, had not very long to live. Valérie and her mother would very readily, and very sympathetically understand. He could tell Valérie, indeed he was forced to do so in order to explain his own absence from thepresbytère; but to others, to the village, to old Narcisse Pélude here, since the broken fastenings of the cross must be replaced, old Mother Blondin's name need not be mentioned.
“Narcisse, how long has that great cross hung there on the wall?” he inquired abruptly.
“Ah—the great cross! Yes—Monsieur le Curé!” The old man laid down a vestment that he had been carefully folding, and wagged his head. “It is very old—very old, that cross. You will see how old it is when I tell you it was made by the grandfather of the present Bouchard, whose pew is right underneath it. Grandfather Bouchard was one of the first in St. Mar-leau, and you must know, Monsieur le Curé, that St. Marleau was then a very small place. It was the Grandfather Bouchard who built most of the old wooden church, and there was a little cupola for the bell, and above the cupola was that cross. Yes, Monsieur le Curé, there have been changes in St. Marleau, and——”
“But how long has it hung there on the wall, Narcisse?” Raymond interrupted with a tolerant smile—Narcisse had been known at times to verge on garrulity!
“But I am telling you, Monsieur le Curé,” said the old sacristan earnestly. “We began to build this fine stone church, and when it was finished the little old wooden church was torn down, and we brought the cross here, and it has been here ever since, and that is thirty-two—no, thirty-three years ago, Monsieur le Curé—it will be thirty-three years this coming November.”
“And in those thirty-three years,” observed Raymond, “I imagine that the cross has remained untouched?”
“But, yes, Monsieur le Curé! Untouched—yes, of course! It was consecrated by Monsignor the Bishop himself—not the present bishop, Monsieur le Curé will understand, but the old bishop who is since dead, and——”
“Quite so,” said Raymond. “Well, come here, nearer to the door, Narcisse. Now, look at the cross very carefully, and see if you can discover why I asked you if it had remained untouched all those years?”
The old man strained his eyes across the chancel to the opposite wall—and shook his head.
“No, Monsieur le Curé, I see nothing—only the cross there as usual.”
“Look higher up,” prompted Raymond. “Do you not see that all but one of the fastenings are broken, and that it is about to fall?”
“Fall? About to fall?” The old man rubbed his eyes, and stared, and rubbed his eyes again. “Yes—yes—it is true! I see now! The cords have rotted away. It is no wonder—in all that time. I—I should have thought of that long, long ago.” He turned a white face to Raymond. “It—it is the mercy of God that it did not happen, Monsieur le Curé, with anybody there! It would have killed Bouchard, and madame, and the children! It would have crushed them to death! Monsieur le Curé, I am amisérable!I am an old man, and I forget, but that is not an excuse. Yes, Monsieur le Curé, I am amisérable!”
Raymond laid his hand on the old sacristan's shoulder.
“We will see that it does not fall on the excellent Bouchard, or on madame, or on the children,” he smiled. “Therefore, bring a ladder and some stout cord, Narcisse, and we will fix it at once.”
The old man stared again at the cross for a moment, then started hurriedly toward the sacristy door that gave on the side of the church.
“Yes, Monsieur le Curé—yes—at once,” he agreed anxiously. “There is a ladder beside the shed that is long enough. I will get it immediately. I am an old man, and I forget, but I am none the less amisérable. If Monsieur le Curé had not happened to notice it, and it had fallen on Bouchard! Monsieur le Curé is very good not to blame me, but I am none the less——”
The old man, shaking his head, and still talking, had disappeared through the doorway.
Old Narcisse Pélude—the self-styledmisérable!The old man had taken it quite to heart! Raymond shrugged his shoulders whimsically. Well, so much the better! It was for old Mother Blondin to tell her own story—if she chose! He wondered, with a curious and seemingly unaccountable wistfulness, if she ever would! It had been a night that had left him strangely moved, strangely bewildered, unable even yet to focus his mind clearly and logically upon it. He could tell Valérie of old Mother Blondin, of how the old woman on the hill had come here seeking peace; he could not tell her that he, too, had come in the hope that he might find what old Mother Blondin had sought—at the Altar of God!
Valérie! Yes, he was strangely moved this morning. And now a yearning and an agony surged upon him. Valérie! Between Valérie's coming to him that night in the stillness of the hours just before the dawn, and his coming here to the church last night, there lay an analogy of souls near-spent, clutching at what they might to save themselves. Peace, and the seeking of a way, he had come for; and peace, and the seeking of a way, she had come for then. It seemed as though he could see that scene again—that room in thepresbytère, and the lamp upon the desk, and that slim, girlish form upon her knees before him; and it seemed as though he could feel the touch again of that soft, dark, silken hair, as she laid his hands upon her bowed head; and it seemed as though he could hear her voice again, as it faltered through thePater Noster: “Hallowed be Thy name... and lead us not into temptation... but deliver us from evil.” Had he, in any measure, found what he had sought last night? He did not know. He had knelt and prayed with old Mother Blondin. TheBenedictus, as he had repeated it, had seemed real. He had known a profound solemnity, and the sense of that solemnity had remained with him, was with him now—and yet he blasphemed that solemnity, and the Altar of God, and this holy place in standing here at this very moment decked out in his stolensoutaneand the crucifix that hung from his neck! Illogical? Why did he do it then? His eyes were on the floor. Illogical? It was to save his life—it was because he was fighting to save his life. It was not to repudiate the sincerity with which he had repeated the words of theBenedictusto old Mother Blondin—it was to save his life. Whatever he had found here, whether a deeper meaning in these holy symbolisms, he had not found the way—no other way but to blaspheme on with hissoutanecloaked around him. And she—Valérie? Had she found what she had sought that night? He did not know. Refuse to acknowledge it, attempt to argue himself into disbelief, if he would, he knew that when she had knelt there that night in the front room of thepresbytèreshe cared. And since then? Had she, in any measure, found what she had sought? Had she crushed back the love, triumphed over it until it remained only a memory in her life? He did not know. She had given no sign. They had never spoken of that night again. Only—only it seemed as though of late there had come a shadow into the fresh, young face, and a shadow into the dark, steadfast eyes, a shadow that had not been there on the night when he had first come to St. Marleau, and she and he had bent together over the wounded man upon the bed.
Subconsciously he had been listening for her step; and now, as he heard her descending the stairs from the organ loft, he stepped out from the sacristy into the chancel, and down into the nave of the church. He could see her now, and she had seen him. She had halted at the foot of the stairs under the gallery at the back of the church. Valérie! How sweet and beautiful she looked this morning! There was just a tinge of rising colour in her cheeks, a little smile, half tremulous, half gay on the parted lips, a dainty gesture of severity and playfulness in the shake of her head, as he approached.
“Oh, Father Aubert,” she exclaimed, “you do not know how relieved we were, mother and I, when we saw you enter the church this morning for mass! We—we were really very anxious about you; and we did not know what to think when mother called you as usual half an hour before the mass, and found that you were not there, and that you had not slept in your bed.”
“Yes, I know,” said Raymond gravely; “and that is what I have come to speak to you about now. I was afraid you would be anxious, but I knew you would understand—though you would perhaps wonder a little—when I told you what kept me away last night. Let us walk down the side aisle there to the chancel, Mademoiselle Valérie, and I will explain.”
A bewildered little pucker gathered on her forehead.
“The side aisle, Father Aubert?” she repeated in a puzzled way.
“Yes; come,” he said. “You will see.”
He led her down the aisle, and, halting before the cross, pointed upward.
“Why, the fastenings, all but one, are broken!” she cried out instantly. “It is a miracle that it has not fallen! What does it mean?”
“It is the story of last night, Mademoiselle Valerie,” he answered with a sober smile. “Sit down in the pew there, and I will tell you. I have sent Narcisse for a ladder, and we will repair the damage presently, but there will be time before he gets back. He believes that the fastenings have grown old and rotten, which is true; and that they parted simply from age, which is not quite so much the fact. I have allowed him to form his own conclusions; I have even encouraged him to believe in them.”
She was sitting in the pew now. The bewildered little pucker had grown deeper. She kept glancing back and forth from Raymond, standing before her in the aisle, to the broken fastenings of the cross high up on the wall.
“But that is what any one would naturally think,” she said slowly. “I thought so myself. I—I do not quite understand, Father Aubert.”
“I think you know,” said Raymond quietly, “that some nights I do not sleep very well, Mademoiselle Valerie. Last night was one of those. When midnight came I was still wakeful, and I had not gone to bed. I was very restless; I knew I could not sleep, and so I decided to go out for a little while.”
“Yes,” she said impulsively; “I know. I heard you.”
“You heard me?” He looked at her in quick surprise. “But I thought I had been very careful indeed to make no noise. I—I did not think that I had wakened———”
A flush came suddenly to her cheeks, and she turned her head aside.
“I—I was not asleep,” she said hurriedly. “Go on, Father Aubert, I did not mean to interrupt you.”
Raymond did not speak for a moment. He was not looking at her now—he dared not trust his eyes to drink deeper of that flush that had come with the simple statement that she too had been awake. Valérie! Valérie! It was the silent voice of his soul calling her. And suddenly he seemed to be looking out from his prison land upon the present scene—upon Valérie and the good, young Father Aubert together, looking upon them both, as he had looked upon them together many times. And suddenly he hated that figure in priestly dress with a deadly hate—because Valérie had tossed upon her bed awake, and had not slept; and because, as though gifted with prophetic vision, he could see the shadow in Valérie's fresh, pure face change and deepen into misery immeasurable, and the young life, barely on its threshold, be robbed of youth with its joy and gladness, and with sorrow grow prematurely old.
“You went out, Father Aubert,” she prompted. “And then?”
The old sacristan would be back with the ladder very shortly, at almost any minute now—and he had to tell Valérie about old Mother Blondin and the cross before Narcisse returned. He looked up. He found himself speaking at first mechanically, and then low and earnestly, swayed strangely by his own words. And so, standing there in the aisle of the church, he told Valerie the story of the night, of the broken cross, of the broken life so near its end. And there was amazement, and wonder, and surprise in Valerie's face as she listened, and then a tender sympathy—and at the end, the dark eyes, as they lifted to his, were filled with tears.
“It is very wonderful,” she said almost to herself. “Old Mother Blondin—it could be only God who brought her here.”
Raymond did not answer. The old sacristan had entered the church, and was bringing the ladder down the aisle. It was the sacristan who spoke, catching sight of Valérie, as Raymond, taking one end of the ladder, raised it against the wall beside the cross.
“Tiens!” The old man lifted the coil of thin rope which he held, and with the back of his hand mopped away a bead of perspiration from his forehead. “You have seen then what has happened, mademoiselle! Father Aubert has made light of it; but what will Monsieur le Curé, your uncle, say when he hears of it! Yes, it is true—I am amisérable—I do not deserve to be sacristan any longer! It was consecrated by Monsignor the Bishop, that cross, when the church was consecrated, and——”
Raymond took the cord quietly from the old man's hand, and began to mount the ladder. He went up slowly—not that the ladder was insecure, but that his mind and thoughts were far removed from the mere mechanical task which he had set himself to perform. Valérie's words had set that turmoil at work in his soul again. She had not hesitated to say that it was God who had brought old Mother Blondin here. And he too believed that now. Peace he had not found, nor the way, but he believed that now. Therefore he must believe now that there was a God—yes, the night had brought him that. And if there was a God, was it God who had led him, as old Mother Blondin had been led, to fall upon his knees in that pew below there where Valérie now sat, andpray?Had he prayed for old Mother Blondin's sakealone?Was God partial then? Old Mother Blondin, he knew, even if her surrender were not yet complete, had found the way. He had not. He had found no way—to save that man who was to be hanged by the neck until he was dead—to save Valérie from shame and misery if she cared, if she still cared—to save himself! Old Mother Blondin alone had found the way. Was it because she was the lesser sinner of the two—because he had blasphemed God beyond all recall—because he still dared to blaspheme God—because he had stood again that morning at the altar and had officiated as God's holy priest—because he stood here now in God's house, an impostor, an intruder and a defiler! No way! And yetthrough himold Mother Blondin had found her God again! Was it irony—God's irony—God's answer, irrefutable, to his former denial of God's existence!
No way! Ten feet below him Valérie and the old sacristan talked and watched; the weather-beaten timbers of the great cross were within reach of his hands; there, inside the chancel rail, was the altar—all these things were real, were physically real. It did not seem as though it could be so. It seemed as though, instead, he were taking part in some horrible, and horribly vivid dream-life. Only there would be no awakening! There was no way—he would twist this cord about the iron hooks on the cross and the iron hook on the wall, and descend, and go through another day, and be the good, young Father Aubert, and toss through another night, and wait, clinging to the miserable hope, spurned even by his gambler's instinct, that “something” might happen—wait for the deciding of that appeal, and picture the doomed man in the death cell, and dream his dreams, and watch Valérie from his prison land, and know through the hours and minutes torment and merciless unrest. Yes, he believed there was a God. He believed that God had brought them both here, old Mother Blondin to cling to the foot of the cross, and himself to find her there—but to him there had come no peace—no way. His blasphemy, his desecration of God's altar and God's church had been made to serve God's ends—old Mother Blondin had found the way. But that purpose was accomplished now. How much longer, then, would God suffer this to continue? Not long! To-morrow, the next day, the day after, would come the answer to the appeal—and then he must choose. Choose! Choose what? What was there to choose where—his hands gripped hard on the rung of the ladder. Enough! Enough of this! It was terrible enough in the nights! There was no end to it! It would go on and on—the same ghoulish cycle over and over again. He would not let it master him now, for there would be no end to it! He was here to fix the cross. To fix God's cross, the consecrated cross—it was a fitting task for one who walked always with that symbol suspended from his neck! It was curious how that symbol had tangled up his hands the night his fingers had crept toward that white throat on the bed! Even the garb of priest that he wore God turned to account, and—no! He lifted his hand and swept it fiercely across his eyes. Enough! That was enough! It was only beginning somewhere else in the cycle that inevitably led around into all the rest again.
He fought his mind back to his immediate surroundings. He was above the horizontal arm of the cross now, and he could see and appreciate how narrowly a catastrophe had been averted the night before. It was, as Valérie had said, a miracle that the cross had not fallen, for the single strand of cord that still held it was frayed to a threadlike thinness.
He glanced above him, decided to make the vertical beam, or centre, of the cross secure first by passing the cord around the upper hook in the wall that was still just a little beyond his reach, stepped quickly up to the next rung of the ladder—and lurched suddenly, pitching heavily to one side. It was hissoutane, the garb of priest, the garb of God's holy priest—his foot had caught in the skirt of hissoutane. He flung out his hands against the wall to save himself. It was too late! The ladder swayed against the cross—the threadlike fastening snapped—and the massive arms of the cross lunged outward toward him, pushing the ladder back. A cry, hoarse, involuntary, burst from his lips—it was echoed by another, a cry from Valérie, a cry that rang in terror through the church. Two faces, white with horror, looking up at him from below, flashed before his eyes—and he was plunging backward, downward with the ladder—and hurtling through the air behind it, the mighty cross, with arms outspread as though in vengeance and to defy escape, pursued and rushed upon him, and—— There was a terrific crash, the rip and rend and tear of splintering wood—and blackness.
There came at first a dull sense of pain; then the pain began to increase in intensity. There were insistent murmurings; there were voices. He was coming back to consciousness; but he seemed to be coming very slowly, for he could not move or make any sign. His side commenced to cause him agony. His head ached and throbbed as though it were being pounded under quick and never-ending hammer blows; and yet it seemed to be strangely and softly cushioned. The murmurings continued. He began to distinguish words—and then suddenly his brain was cleared, cleared as by some terrific mental shock that struck to the soul, uplifting it in a flood of glory, engulfing it in a fathomless and abysmal misery. It was Valerie—it was Valerie's voice—Valerie whispering in a frightened, terrified, almost demented way—whispering that shelovedhim, imploring him to speak.
“... Oh, will no one come! Can Narcisse find no one! I—I cannot bring him back to consciousness! Speak to me! Speak to me! You must—you shall! It is I who have sinned in loving you. It is I who have sinned and made God angry, and brought this upon you. But God will not let you die—because—because—it was my sin—and—and you would never know. I—I promised God that you would never know. And you—you shall not die! You shall not! You shall not! Speak to me—oh, speak to me!”
Speak to her! Speak to Valerie! Not even to whisper her name—when the blood in a fiery tide whipped through his veins; when impulse born of every fibre of his being prompted him to lift his arms to her face, so close to his that he could feel her breath upon his cheek, and draw it closer, closer, until it lay against his own, and to hold it there, and find her lips, and feel them cling to his! There was a physical agony from his hurts upon him that racked him from head to foot—but there was an agony deeper still that was in his soul. His head was pillowed on her knee, but even to open his eyes and look up into that pure face he loved was denied him, even to whisper a word that would allay her fears and comfort her was denied him. From Valérie's own lips had come the bitterest and dearest words that he would ever hear. He could temporise no longer now. He could juggle no more with his false and inconsistent arguments. Valérie cared, Valérie loved him—as he had known she cared, as he had known she loved him. A moan was on his lips, forced there by a sudden twinge of pain that seemed unendurable. He choked it back. She must not know that he had heard—he must simulate unconsciousness. He could not save her from much now, from the “afterwards” that was so close upon him—but he could save her from this. She should not know! God's cross in God's church... his blasphemy, his sacrilege had been answered... the very garb of priest had repaid him for its profanation and struck him down... and Valérie... Valérie was here... holding him... and Valérie loved him... but Valérie must not know... it was between Valérie and her God... she must not know that he had heard.
Her hands were caressing his face, smoothing back his hair, bathing his forehead with the water which had been her first thought perhaps before she had sent Narcisse for help. Valérie's hands! Like fire, they were, upon him, torturing him with a torture beyond the bodily torment he was suffering; and like the tenderest, gladdest joy he had ever known, they were. A priest of God—and Valérie! No, it went deeper far than that; it was a life of which this was but the inevitable and bitter culmination—and Valérie. But for that, in a surge of triumphant ecstasy, victor of a prize beyond all price, his arms might have swept out in the full tide of his manhood's strength around her, claiming her surrender—a surrender that would have been his right—a surrender that would have been written deep in love and trust and faith and glory in those dark, tear-dimmed eyes.
And now her hands closed softly, and remained still, and held his face between them—and she was gazing down at him. He could see her, he had no need to open his eyes for that—he could see the sweet, quivering lips; the love, the terror, the yearning, the fear mingling in the white, beautiful face. And then suddenly, with a choked sob, she bent forward and kissed him, and laid her face against his cheek.
“He will not speak to me!”—her voice was breaking. “Then listen, my lover—my lover, who cannot hear—my lover, who will never know. Is it wrong to kiss you, is it making my sin the greater to tell you—you who will not hear. There is only God to know. And out of all my life it is for just this once—for just this once. Afterwards, if you live, I will ask God to forgive—for it is only for this once—this once out of all my life. And—and—if you die—then—then I will ask God to be merciful and—and take me too. You did not know I loved you so, and I had never thought to tell you. And if you live you will never know, because you are God's priest, and my sin is very terrible, but—but I—I shall know that you are somewhere, a big and brave and loyal man, and glad in your life, and—and loved, as all love you here in St. Marleau. All through my life I will love you—all through my life—and—and I will remember that for just this once, for this moment out of all the years, I gave myself to you.”
She drew him closer. An agony that was maddening shot through his side as she moved him. If he might only clench his teeth deep in his lips that he might not scream out! But he could not do that for Valeric would see—and Valérie must not know. Tighter and tighter she held him in her strong, young arms—and now, like the bursting wide of flood-gates, there was passion in her voice.
“I love you! I love you! I love you! And I am afraid—and I am afraid! For I am only a woman, and it is a woman's love. Would you turn from me if you knew? No, no—I—I do not know what I am saying—only that you are here with my arms around you—and that—that your face is so pale—and that—and that you will not speak to me.”
She was crying. She bent lower until, as a mother clasps a child, his head lay upon her breast and shoulder, and her own head was buried on his breast. And again with the movement came excruciating pain, and now a weakness, a giddy swirling of his senses. It passed. He opened his eyes for an instant, for she could not see him now. He was lying just inside the chancel rail, and almost at the altar's foot. The sunlight streamed through the windows of the church, but they were in shadow, Valérie and he, in a curious shadow—it seemed to fall in a straight line across them both, and yet be spread out in two wide arms that completely covered them. And at first he could not understand, and then he saw that the great cross lay forward with its foot against the wall and the arms upon the shattered chancel rail—and the shadow was the shadow of the cross. What did it mean? Was it there premonitory of a wrath still unappeased, that was still to know fulfilment; or was it there in pity—on Valérie—into whose life he had brought a sorrow that would never know its healing? He closed his eyes again—the giddiness had come once more.
“I—I promised God that he would never know”—she was speaking scarcely above her breath, and the passion was gone out from her voice now, and there was only pleading and entreaty. “Mary, dear and holy Mother, have pity, and listen, and forgive—and bring him back to life. It came, and it was stronger than I—the love. But I will keep my promise to God—always—always. Forgive my sin, if it is not too great for forgiveness, and help me to endure—and—and——” her voice broke in a sob, and was still.
Her lips touched his brow gently; her hands smoothed back his hair. Dizziness and torturing pain were sweeping over him in swiftly alternating flashes. There were beads of agony standing out, he knew, upon his forehead—but they were mingled and were lost in the tears that suddenly fell hot upon him. Valerie! Valerie! God give him strength that he might not writhe, that he might not moan. No, he need not fear that—the pain was not so great now—it seemed to be passing gradually, very gradually, even soothingly, away—there were other voices—they seemed a long way off—there seemed to be footsteps and the closing of a door—and the footsteps came nearer and nearer—but as they came nearer they grew fainter and fainter—and blackness fell again.
THE reins lay idly in Raymond's hand. The horse, left to its own initiative, ambled lazily to the crest of a little rise that commanded a view of the town of Tournayville beyond. Raymond's eyes, lifting from the dash-board, ignoring the general perspective, fixed and held on a single detail, to the right, and perhaps a mile away—a high, rectangular, gray stone wall, that inclosed a gray, rectangular stone building.
His eyes reverted to the dash-board. It was nearly two weeks now since he had seen that cold and narrow space with its iron bars, and the figure that huddled on the cot clasping its hands dejectedly between its knees—nearly two weeks. It was ten days since he had been struck down in the church—and in another ten days, over yonder, inside that gray stone wall, a man was to be hung by the neck until he was dead. Ten days forward—ten days backward—ten days.
Ten days! In the ten days just past he had sought, in a deeper, more terrible anguish of mind than even in those days when he had thought the bitterest dregs were already at his lips, for the answer to these ten days to come—for now there was Valerie, Valérie's love, no longer a probability against which he might argue fiercely, desperately with himself, but an actual, real, existent, living thing, glorious and wonderful—and terrible as a hand of death stretching out a pointing finger to the “afterwards.” And there was God.
Yes—God! He was still the curé of St. Marleau, still the good, young Father Aubert; but since that morning when he had been struck down at the foot of God's altar he had not entered the church—and he had been no more a priest, profaning that holy place. It was not fear, a craven, superstitious fear that the hand which had struck him once would deal him physical injury again; it was not that—it was—what? He did not know. His mind was chaos there—chaos where it groped for a definite, tangible expression of his attitude toward God. There was a God. It was God who had drawn old Mother Blondin to the church that night, and had made him the instrument of her recovered faith—and the instrument of his own punishment when, in her fright which he had caused, she had loosened the great cross upon the wall. It was not coincidence, it was not superstition—deep in his consciousness lay the memory of that night when, with the old woman's hand in his, he had knelt and prayed; and deep in his consciousness was the sure knowledge that when he had prayed he had prayed in the presence of God. But he could get no further—it was as though he looked on God from afar off. Here turmoil took command. There was Valérie; the man who was to die; himself; the inflexible, immutable approach, the closing in upon him of that day of final reckoning. And God had shown him no way. He seemed to recognise an avenging God, not one to love. He could not say that he had the impulse to revere as the simple people of St. Marleau had, as Valérie had—and yet since that morning when they had carried him unconscious to thepresbytèrehe had not again entered the church, he had not again stood before God's altar in his blasphemous, stolen garb of priest!
Raymond's thumb nail made abstracted little markings on the leather rein in his hand. Yes, that was true; profanation seemed to have acquired a new, and personal, and intimate meaning—and he had not gone. Circumstances had aided him. The solicitude of Madame Lafleur had made it easy for him to linger in bed, and subsequently to remain confined to his room long after his broken ribs, and the severe contusions he had received in his fall, had healed sufficiently to let him get about again. And he had allowed Madame Lafleur to “persuade” him! It had not been difficult as far as the early morning mass was concerned, for, with the curé sick in bed, the mass, it would be expected, would be temporarily dispensed with; but a Sunday had intervened. But even that he had solved. If some one from somewhere must say mass that day, it must be some one who would not by any chance have ever known or met the real Father François Aubert. There was Father Décan, the prison chaplain of Tour-nayville. He had never met Father Décan, even when visiting the jail, but since Father Décan had not recognised the prisoner, Father Décan obviously would have no suspicions of one Raymond Chapelle—and so he had sent a request to Father Décan to celebrate mass on the preceding Sunday, and Father Décan had complied.
The thumb nail bit a little deeper into the leather. Yesterday was the first day he had been out. This morning he had again deliberately dispensed with the mass, but to-day was Saturday—and to-morrow would be Sunday—and to-morrow St. Marleau would gather to hear the good, young Father Aubert preach again! Was God playing with him! Did God not see that he had twisted, and turned, and struggled, and planned that he might not blaspheme and profane God's altar again! Did God not see that he revolted at the thought! And yet God had shown him no other way. What else could he do? What else was there to do? He was still with his life at stake, with the life of another at stake—and there was Valérie—Valérie—Valérie!
A sharp cry of pain came involuntarily to his lips, and found utterance—and startled the horse into a reluctant jogging for a few paces. Valérie! He had scarcely seen her in all those ten days. It was Madame Lafleur who had taken care of him. Valérie had not purposely avoided him—it was not that—only she had gone to live practically all the time at old Mother Blondin's. The old woman was dying. For three days now she had not roused from unconsciousness. This morning she had been very low. By the time he returned she might be dead.
Dead! These were the closing hours of his own life in St. Marleau, the end here, too, was very near—and the closing hours, with sinister, ominous significance, seemed to be all encompassed about and permeated with death. It was not only old Mother Blon-din. There was the man in the death cell, whom he was on his way to see now, this afternoon, who was waiting for death—for death on a dangling rope—for death that was not many days off. Yesterday Father Décan had driven out to say that the prisoner was in a pitiful state of mental collapse, imploring, begging, entreating that Father Aubert should come to him—and so this afternoon Father Aubert, the good, young Father Aubert, was on his way—to the cell of death.
Raymond's lips moved silently. This was the very threshold of the “afterwards”—the threshold of that day—the day of wrath.
“Dies ilia, dies ira, calamitatis et miserio, dies magna et am ara valde—That day, a day of wrath, of wasting, and of misery, a great day, and exceeding bitter.”
Unbidden had come the words. Set his face was, and white. If all else were false, if God were but the transition from the fairy tales of childhood to the fairy tale of maturity, if religion were but a shell, a beautiful shell that was empty, a storehouse of wonderful architectural beauty that held no treasure within—at least those words were true—a day of wrath, and exceeding bitter. And that day was upon him; and there was no way to go, no turn to take, only the dark, mocking pathways of the maze that possessed no opening, only the dank, slimy walls of that Walled Place against which he beat and bruised his fists in impotent despair. There was the man who was to be hanged—and himself—and Valerie—and he knew now that Valérie loved him.
The horse ambled on through the outskirts of the town. Occasionally Raymond mechanically turned out for a passing team, and acknowledged mechanically the respectful salutation. In his mind a new thought was germinating and taking form. He had said that God-had shown him no way. Was he so sure of that? If God had led him to the church that night, and had brought through him an eleventh hour reversion of faith to old Mother Blondin, and had forced the acceptance of divine existence upon himself, was he so sure that in the breaking of the fastenings of the cross, that it might fall and strike him down, there lay only a crowning punishment, only a thousandfold greater anguish, only bitter, helpless despair, in that it had been the means whereby, from Valérie's own lips, he had come to the knowledge of Valérie's love? Was he so sure of that? Was he so sure that in the very coming to him of the knowledge of her love he was not being shown the way he was to take!
The buckboard turned from the road it had been following, and took the one leading to the jail. Subconsciously Raymond guided the horse now, and subconsciously he was alive to his surroundings and to the passers-by—but his mind worked on and on with the thought that now obsessed him.
Suppose that his choice of saving one of the two lay between this man in the condemned cell and Valerie—which would he choose? He laughed sharply aloud in ironical derision. Which would he choose! It was pitiful, it was absurd—the question! Pitiful? Absurd? Well, but was it not precisely the choice he was called upon to make—to choose between Valérie and the man in the condemned cell? Was that not what the knowledge of her love meant? She loved him; from her own lips, as she had poured out her soul, thinking there was none but God to hear, he had learned the full measure of her love—a love that would never die, deep, and pure, and sinless—a love that was but the stronger for the sorrow it had to bear—a cherished, hallowed love around which her very life had entwined itself until life and love were one for always.
The gray stone walls of the jail, cold, dreary, forbidding, loomed up a little way ahead. The reins were loose upon the dashboard, but clenched in a mighty grip in Raymond's hand. He could save the man in there from death—but he could save Valérie from what would be worse than death to her. He could save her from the shame, the agony, the degradation that would kill that pure soul of hers, that would imbitter, wreck and ruin that young life, if he, the object of her love, should dangle as a felon from the gallows almost before her eyes, or flee, leaving to that love, a felon's heritage. Yes, he could save Valérie from that; and if he could save Valérie from that, what did the man in the condemned cell count for in the balance? The man meant nothing to him—nothing—nothing! It was Valérie! There was the “accident”—so easy, so sure—the “death” of the good, young Father Aubert—the upturned boat—the body supposedly washed out to sea. Long ago, in the first days of his life in St. Marleau, he had worked out the details, and the plan could not fail. There would be her grief, of course; he could not stand between her and her grief for the loss of the one she loved—but it would be a grief without bitterness, a memory without shame.
Did the man in the condemned cell count for anything against that! It would save Valerie, and—his face set suddenly in rigid lines, and his lips drew tight together—and it would savehimself!It was the one alternative to either giving himself up to stand in the other's place, or of becoming a fugitive, branding himself as such, and saving the condemned man by a confession sent, say, to the Bishop, who, he remembered, knew the real François Aubert personally, and could therefore at once identify the man. Yes, it was the one alternative—and that alternative would save—himself! Wait! Was he sure that it was only Valérie of whom he was thinking? Was he sure that he was sincere? Was he sure there were no coward promptings—to save himself?
For a moment the tense and drawn expression in his face held as he groped in mind and soul for the answer; and then his lips parted in a bitter smile. It was not much to boast of! Three-Ace Artie a coward? Ask of the men of that far Northland whose lives ran hand in hand with death, ask of the men of the Yukon, ask of the men who knew! Gambler, roué, whatever else they might have called him, no man had ever called him coward! If his actual death, rather than his supposititious death, could save Valérie the better, in his soul he knew that he would not have hesitated. Why then should he hesitate about this man! If it lay between Valérie and this man, why should he hesitate! If he would give his own life to save Valérie from suffering and shame, why should he consider this man's life—this man who meant nothing to him—nothing!
Well, had he decided? He was at the jail now. Was he satisfied that this was the way? Yes! Yes—yes!He told himself with fierce insistence that it was—an insistence that by brute force beat down an opposition that somehow seemed miserably seeking to intrude itself. Yes—it was the way! There was only the appeal, that one chance to wait for, and once that was refused he would borrow Bouchard's boat—Bouchard's new boat—and to-morrow, or the next day, or the next, whenever it might be, instead of looking for him at mass in church, St. Marleau would look along the shore in search of the body of the good, young Father Aubert.
He tied his horse, and knocked upon the jail gate, and presently the gate was opened.
The attendant touched his cap.
“Salut, Monsieur le Curé!” he said respectfully, as he stepped aside for Raymond to enter. “Monsieur le Curé had a very narrow escape. The blessed saints be praised! It is good to see him. He is quite well again?”
“Quite,” said Raymond pleasantly.
The man closed the gate, and led the way across a narrow courtyard to the jail building. The jail was pretentious neither in size nor in staff—the man who had opened the gate acted as one of the turnkeys as well.
“It is to see the prisoner Mentone that Monsieur le Curé has come, of course?” suggested the attendant.
“Yes,” Raymond answered.
The turnkey nodded.
“Pauvre diable!He will be glad! He has been calling for you all the time. It did no good to tell him you were sick, and Father Décan could do nothing with him. He has been very bad—not hard to manage, you understand, Monsieur le Curé—but he does not sleep except when he is exhausted, because he says there is only a little while left and he will live that much longer if he keeps awake.Tiens!I have never had a murderer here to be hanged before, and I do not like it. I dream of the man myself!”
Raymond made no reply. They had entered the jail now, and the turnkey was leading the way along a cell-flanked corridor.
“Yes, I dream of him every night, and the job ahead of us—and so does Jacques, the other turnkey.” The man nodded his head again; then, over his shoulder: “He has a visitor with him now, Monsieur le Curé, but that will not matter—it is Monsieur l'Avocat, Monsieur Lemoyne, you know.”
Lemoyne! Lemoyne—here! Why? Raymond reached out impulsively, and, catching the turnkey's arm, brought the man to a sudden halt.
“Monsieur Lemoyne, you say!” he exclaimed sharply. “What is Monsieur Lemoyne doing here?”
“But—but, I do not know, Monsieur le Curé,” the turnkey, taken by surprise, stammered. “He comes often, he is often here, it is the privilege of the prisoner's lawyer. I—I thought that perhaps Monsieur le Curé would care to see him too. But perhaps Monsieur le Curé would prefer to wait until he has gone?”
“No”—Raymond's hand fell away from the other's arm. “No—I will see him. I was afraid for the moment that he might have brought—bad news. That was all.”
“Ah, yes, I understand, Monsieur le Curé”—the turnkey nodded once more. “But I do not know. Monsieur Lemoyne said nothing when he came in.”
Afraid! Afraid that Lemoyne had brought the answer to that appeal! Well, what if Lemoyne had! Had he, Raymond, not known always what the answer would be, and had he not just decided what he would do when that answer was received—had he not decided that between the man and Valérie there could be no hesitation, no more faltering, or tormenting——
The cell door swung open.
“Enter, Monsieur le Curé!”
The turnkey's voice seemed far away. Mechanically Raymond stepped forward. The door clanged raucously behind him. There came a cry, a choked cry, a strangling cry, that mingled a pitiful joy with terror and despair—and a figure with outstretched arms, a figure with gaunt, white, haggard face was stumbling toward him; and now the figure had flung itself upon its knees, and was clutching at him convulsively with its arms.
“Father—Father François Aubert—father, have pity upon me—father, tell them to have pity upon me!”
And yet he scarcely saw this figure, scarcely heard the voice, though his hands were laid upon the bowed head that was buried in the skirt of hissoutane. He was looking at that other figure, at Lemoyne, the young lawyer, who stood at the far end of the cell near the iron-barred window. There were tears in Lemoyne's eyes; and Lemoyne held a document in his hand.
“Thank God that you have come, Monsieur le Curé!” Lemoyne said huskily.
“You have”—Raymond steadied his voice—“bad news?”
Lemoyne silently extended the document.
There were a great many words, a great many sentences written on the paper. If he read them all, Raymond was not conscious of it; he was conscious only that, in summary, he had grasped their meaning—the man must die.
The man's head was still buried in Raymond'ssoutane, his hands still clasped tightly at Raymond's knees. Raymond did not speak—the question was in his eyes as they met Lemoyne's.
Lemoyne shook his head hopelessly, and, taking the document back from Raymond, returned it slowly to his pocket.
“I will leave you alone with him, Monsieur le Curé—it will be better,” he said in a low voice. He stepped across the cell, and for a moment laid his hand on the shoulder of the kneeling man. “Courage, Henri—I will come back to-morrow,” he whispered, and passed on to the door.
“Wait!”—Raymond stepped to Lemoyne's side, as the lawyer rattled upon the door for the turnkey. “There—there is nothing more that can be done?” His throat was dry, even his undertone rasped and grated in his own ears. “Nothing?”
“Nothing!” Lemoyne's wet eyes lifted to meet Raymond's, and again he shook his head. “I shall ask, as a matter of course, that the sentence be commuted to life imprisonment—but it will not be granted. It—it would be cruelty even to suggest it to him, Monsieur le Curé.” And then, as the door opened, he wrung Raymond's hand, and went hurriedly from the cell.
Slowly Raymond turned away from the door. There was hollow laughter in his soul. A mocking voice was in his ears—that inner voice.
“Well,thatis decided! Now put your own decision into effect, and have done with this! Have done with it—do you hear! Have done with it—have done with it—once for all!”
His eyes swept the narrow cell, its white walls, the bare, cold floor, the cot with its rumpled blanket, the iron bars on the window that sullenly permitted an oblong shaft of sunlight to fall obliquely on the floor—and upon the figure that, still upon its knees, held out its arms imploringly to him, that cried again to him piteously.
“Father—Father Aubert—help me—tell them to have pity upon me—save me, father—Father François Aubert—save me!”
And Raymond, though he fought to shift his eyes again to those iron bars, to the sunlight's shaft, to anywhere, could not take them from that figure. The man was distraught, stricken, beside himself; weakness, illness, the weeks of confinement, the mental anguish, crowned in this moment as he saw his last hope swept away, had done their work. The tears raced down the pallid cheeks; the eyes were like—like they had been in the courtroom that day—like dumb beast's in agony.
“Soothe him, quiet him,” snarled that voice savagely, “and do it as quickly as you can—and get out of here! Tell him about that God that you think you've come to believe is not a myth, if you like—tell him anything that will let you get away—and remember Valérie. Do you think this scene here in this cell, and that thing grovelling on the floor is the sum of human misery? Then picture Valérie nursing shame and horror and degradation in her soul! What is this man to you! Remember Valérie!”
Yes—Valérie! That was true! Only—if only he could avoid the man's eyes! Well, why did not he, Raymond, speak, why did he not act, why did he not do something—instead of standing here impotently over the other, and simply hold the man's hands—yes, that was what he was doing—that was what felt so hot, so feverishly hot—those hands that laced their fingers so frantically around his.
“My son,”—the words were coming by sheer force of will—“do not give way like this. Try and calm yourself. See”—he stooped, and, raising the other by the shoulders, drew him to the cot—“sit here, and——”
“You will not go, father—you will not go?”—the man was passing his hands up and down Raymond's arms, patting them, caressing them, as though to assure and reassure himself that Raymond was there. “They told me that you were hurt, and—and I was afraid, for there is no one else, father—no one else—only—only you—and you are here now—you are here now—and—and you will stay with me, father?”
“Yes,” said Raymond numbly.
“Yes, you are here”—it was as though the man were whispering to himself, and a smile had lighted up the wan face. “See, I am not afraid any more, for you have come. Monsieur Lemoyne said that I must die, that there was no hope any more, that—that I would have to be hanged, but you will not let them, father, you will not let them—for you have come now—you have come—Father François Aubert, my friend, you have come.”
Raymond's hand, resting on the cot behind the other's back, picked up and clenched a fold of blanket. There was something horrible, abominable, hellish in the man's trustful smile, in the man's faith, that was the faith of a child in the parent's omnipotence, in this man crying upon his own name as a magic talisman that would open to him the gates of life! What answer was there to make? He could not sit here dumb—and yet he could not speak. There were things apriestshould say—a priest who was here to comfort a man condemned to death, a man who was to be hanged by the neck until he was dead. He should talk to the other of God, of the tender mercy of God, of the life that was to come where there was no more death. But talk to the man like that—when he, Raymond, was sending the other to his doom; when the other, not he, should be sitting here in thissoutane; when he had already robbed the man of his identity, and even at this moment purposed robbing him of his life! Act Father François Aubert to Father François Aubert here in this prison cell under the shadow of that dangling rope, tell him of God, of God's tender mercy, supplicate to God for that mercy,praywith his lips for that mercy while he stabbed the man to death! He shivered, and it seemed as though his fingers would tear and rend through the blanket in the fierceness of their clutch—it was the one logical, natural thing that a priest should say, that he, in his priestly dress, should say!No!He neither would nor could! It was hideous! No human soul could touch depths as black as that—and the man was clinging to him—clinging to him—and—-
“Remember Valérie!”—it came like a curling lash, that inner voice, curt, brutal, contemptuous. “Are you going to weaken again? Remember what it cost you once—and remember that it is for Valérie's sake this time!”
The strong jaws set together. Yes—Valérie! Yes—he would remember. He would not falter now—he would go through with it, and have done with it. Between this man's life and a lifelong misery for Valerie there could be no hesitation.
“Henri Mentone, my son,” he said gravely, “I adjure you to be brave. I have come, it is true, and I will come often, but——”
The words that Raymond's brain was stumbling, groping for, the “something,” the “anything” to say, found no expression. The man suddenly appeared to be paying no attention; his head was turned in a tense, listening attitude; there was horror in the white face; and now the other's hands closed like steel bands around Raymond's wrists.
“Listen!” whispered the man wildly. “Listen! Oh, my God—listen!”
Startled, Raymond turned his head about, looking quickly around the cell. There was nothing—there was no sound.
“Don't you hear it!”—the other's voice was guttural and choked now, and he shook fiercely at Raymond's wrists. “I thought it had gone away when you came, but there it is again. I—I thought you had told them to stop! Don't you hear it—don't you hear it! Don't you hear themhammering!Listen! Listen! There it is!”
Raymond felt the blood ebb swiftly from his face.
“No—try and compose yourself. There is nothing—nothing, my son—it is only————-”
“I tell you, yes!” cried the man frantically. “I hear it! I hear it! You say, no; and I tell you, yes! I have heard it night and day. It comes from there—see!”—he swept one hand toward the barred window, and suddenly, leaping to his feet, dragged at Raymond with almost superhuman strength, forcing Raymond up from the cot and across the cell. “Come, and I will show you! It is out there! They are hammering out there now!”
The man's face was ghastly, the frenzy with which he pulled was ghastly—and now at the window he thrust out his arm through the bars, far out up to the armpit, far out with horrible eagerness, and pointed.
“There! There! You cannot see, but it is just around the corner of the building—between the building and the wall. You cannot see, but it is just around the corner there that they are building it! Listen to them! Listen to them—hammering—hammering—hammering!”
Sweat was on Raymond's forehead.
“Come away!” he said hoarsely. “In the name of God, come away!”
“Ah, you hear it now!”—the condemned man drew in his arm, until his fingers clawed and picked at the bars. “They will not stop, and it is because I cannot remember—because I cannot remember—here—here—here”—he swung clear of the window—and suddenly raising his clenched fists began to beat with almost maniacal fury at his temples. “If I could remember, they would stop—they would——”
“Henri! My son!” Raymond cried out sharply—and caught at the other's hands. A crimson drop had oozed from the man's bruised skin, and now was trickling down the colourless, working face. “You do not know what you are doing! Listen to me! Listen! Let me go!”—the man wrenched and fought furiously to break Raymond's hold. “They will not stop out there—they are hammering—don't you hear them hammering—and it is because I—I——” The snarl, the fury in the voice was suddenly a sob. The man was like a child again, helpless, stricken, chidden; and as Raymond's hands unlocked, the man reached out his arms and put them around Raymond's neck, and hid his face upon Raymond's shoulder. “Forgive me, father—forgive me!” he pleaded brokenly. “Forgive me—it is sometimes more than I can bear.”
Raymond's arms mechanically tightened around the shaking shoulders; and mechanically he drew the other slowly back to the cot. Something was gnawing at his soul until his soul grew sick and faint. Hell shrieked its abominable approval in his ears, as he sat down upon the cot still holding the other—and shrieked the louder, until the cell seemed to ring and ring again with its unholy mirth, as the man pressed his lips to the crucifix on Raymond's breast.
“Father, I do not want to die”—the man spoke brokenly again. “They say I killed a man. How could I have killed a man, father? See”—he straightened back, and held out both his hands before Raymond's eyes—“see, father, surely these hands have never harmed any one. I cannot remember—I do not remember anything they say I did. Surely if I could remember, I could make them know that I am innocent. But I cannot remember. Father, must I die because I cannot remember? Must I, father”—the man's face was gray with anguish. “I have prayed to God to make me remember, father, and—and He does not answer—He does not answer—and I hear only that hammering—and sometimes in the night there is something that tightens and tightens around my throat, and—and it is horrible. Father—Father François Aubert—tell them to have pity upon me—you believe that I am innocent, don't you—you believe, father—yes, yes!”—he clutched at Raymond's shoulders—“yes, yes, y°u believe—look into my eyes, look into my face—look, father—look——”
Look! Look into that face, look into those eyes! He could not look.
“My son, be still!”—the words were wrung in sudden agony from Raymond's lips.
He drew the other's head to his shoulder again, and held the other there—that he might not look—that the eyes and the face might be hidden from him. And the form in his arms shook with convulsive sobs, and clung to him, and called him by its own name, and called him friend—this stricken man who was to die—for whom he, Raymond, was building “it” out there under the shadow of the jail wall—and—and—God, he too could hear thathammeringand—“Fool, remember Valérie!”
The sweat beads multiplied upon Raymond's forehead. His face was bloodless; his grip so tight upon the other that the man cried out, yet in turn but clung the closer. Yes, that voice was right—right—right! It was only that for the moment he was unnerved. It was this man's life for Valérie—this man's life for Valérie. It would only be a few days more, and then it would be over in a second, before even the man knew it—but with Valérie it would be for all of life, and there would be years and years—yes, yes, it was only that he had been unnerved for the instant—it was this man's life for Valérie—if he would give his own life, why shouldn't he give this man's—why shouldn't——
His brain, his mind, his thoughts seemed suddenly to be inert, to be held in some strangely numbed, yet fascinated suspension. He was staring at the shaft of sunlight that fought for its right against those iron bars to enter this place of death. He stared and stared at it—something—a face—seemed to be emerging slowly out of the sunlight, to be taking form just beyond, just outside those iron bars, to become framed in the gray, pitiless stone of the window slit, to be pressed against those iron bars, to be looking in.
And suddenly he pushed the man violently and without heed from him, until the man fell forward on the cot, and Raymond, lurching upward himself, stood rocking upon his feet. It was clear, distinct now, that face looking in through those iron bars. It was Valerie's face—Valerie's—Valerie's face. It was beautiful as he had never seen it beautiful before. The sweet lips were parted in a smile of infinite tenderness and pity, and the dark eyes looked out through a mist of compassion, not upon him, but upon the figure behind him on the prison cot. He reached out his arms. His lips moved silently—Valérie! And then she seemed to turn her head and look at him, and her eyes swam deeper in their tears, and there was a wondrous light of love in her face, and with the love a condemnation that was one of sorrow and of bitter pain. She seemed to speak; he seemed to hear her voice: “That life is not yours to give. I have sinned, my lover, in loving you. Is my sin to be beyond all forgiveness because out of my love has been born the guilt of murder?”
The voice was gone. The face had faded out of that shaft of sunlight—only the iron bars were there now. Raymond's outstretched arms fell to his side—and then he turned, and dropped upon his knees beside the cot, and hid his face in his hands.
Murder! Yes, it was murder—murder that desecrated, that vilified, that made a wanton thing of that pure love, that brave and sinless love, that Valerie had given him. And he would have linked the vilest and the blackest crime, hideous the more in the Judas betrayal with which he would have accomplished it, with Valerie—with Valerie's love! His hands, locked about his face, trembled. He was weak and nerveless in a Titanic revulsion of soul and mind and body. And horror was upon him, a horror of himself—and yet, too, a strange and numbed relief. It was not he, it was not he as he knew himself, who had meant to do this thing—it was not Raymond Chapelle who had thought and argued that this was the way. See! His soul recoiled, blasted, shrivelled now from before it! It was because his brain had been tormented, not to the verge of madness, but had been flung across that border-line for a space into the gibbering realms beyond where reason tottered and was lost.
He was conscious that the man was sitting upright on the edge of the cot, conscious that the man's hands were plucking pitifully at the sleeve of hissoutane, conscious that the man was pleading again hysterically: “Father, you will tell them that you know I am innocent. They will believe you, father—they will believe you. They say I did it, father, but I cannot remember, or—or, perhaps, I could make them believe me, too. You will not let me die, father—because—because I cannot remember. You will save me, father”—the man's voice was rising, passing beyond control—“Father François Aubert, for the pity of Christ's love, tell me that you will not let me die—tell me——”
And then Raymond raised his head. His face was strangely composed.
“Hush, my son”—he scarcely recognised his own voice—it was quiet, low, gentle, like one soothing a child. “Hush, my son, you will not die.”
“Father! Father Aubert!”—the man was lurching forward toward him; the white, hollow face was close to his; the burning deep-sunk eyes with a terrible hunger in them looked into his. “I will not die! I will not die! You said that, father? You said that?”
“Hush!” Raymond's lips were dry, he moistened them with his tongue. “Calm yourself now, my son—you need no longer have any fear.”
A sob broke from the man's lips. His hands covered his face; he began to rock slowly back and forth upon the cot. He crooned to himself:
“I will not die—I am to live—I will not die—I am to live....”
And then suddenly, in a paroxysm of returning fear, he was on his feet, dragging Raymond up from his knees, and, catching at Raymond's crucifix, lifted it wildly to Raymond's lips.
“Swear it, father!” he cried. “Swear it on the cross! Swear by God's holy Son that I will not die! Swear it on the blessed cross!”
“I swear it,” Raymond answered in a steady voice.
There was no sound, no cry now—only a transfigured face, glad with a mighty joy. And then the man's hands went upward queerly, seeking his temples—and the swaying form lay in Raymond's arms.
The man stirred after a moment, and opened his eyes.
“Are you there, father—my friend?” he whispered.
“Yes,” Raymond said.
The man's hold tightened, and he sighed like one over-weary who had found repose.
And sitting there upon the edge of the cot, Raymond held the other in his arms—and the sunlight's shaft through the barred window grew shorter—and shadows crept into the narrow cell. At times there came low sobs; at times the man's hand was raised to feel and touch Raymond's face, at times to touch the crucifix on Raymond's breast. And then at last the other moved no more, and the breathing became deep and regular, and a peaceful smile came and lingered on the lips.
And Raymond laid the other gently back upon the cot, and, crossing to the cell door, knocked softly upon it for the turnkey. And as the door was opened, he laid his finger across his lips.