|Haldane, like Baptisto, was clad funereally. A long black travelling
cloak was wrapped around him, and a Spanish sombrero, also black, was
drawn over his forehead. He was ghastly pale. He stood with knitted
brows, gazing quietly at the clergyman.
Santley tried to speak, but could not. Again his left hand clutched his
heart, and he seemed about to fall. Then he heard, as if in a dream--for
the voice seemed far away--these words:
“I see, reverend sir, that Baptisto has told you everything. Yes, it is
quite true, and yet so sudden, that even I can scarce realize my loss.”
“It is incredible,” cried Santley.. “Only a few hours since, I know, she
was alive and well; and now----”
“And now,” returned Haldane, in the same cold, clear voice, “the end has
come. It is strange that you, with your religious views, should be so
surprised at what is sadly common. We mortals, are like men travelling
in ships upon a great sea; we eat, drink, and are merry--too often
forgetting that there is only a mere plank between us and the grave.”
Santley listened in wonder, less at the words than at the calmness,
the perfect self-control, with which they were uttered. He had always
thought Haldane hard and callous, but now he seemed to him a very
monster of cold-bloodedness.
“I cannot believe it,” he cried; “and you--you seem so calm. Surely, if
she were dead, indeed----”
“What would you have me do?” interrupted Haldane. “Weep, wring my hands?
Will wailing and gnashing of teeth buy back the lost? If it would do so,
reverend sir, then I might rave and tear my hair? But no; philosophy has
taught me to contemplate the inevitable with resignation.”
“But she was so young! So--so beautiful!”
“Alas! the young too often die first, and the prettiest flowers are the
first to fade away. She was always delicate, and latterly, I fear, the
spirit was too strong for the frail body. It is comfort to reflect, now
all is done, that she had at least the consolations of your holy faith.
Death comes to all. Life is but the business of a day. One dies at dawn,
another not till afternoon; another creeps wearily on till evening, when
the stars of the eternity twinkle down upon his sad grey hairs. She died
in her prime, and was at least spared the sorrows and infirmities that
attend the lingering decay of nature. So peace be with her!”
“It is too horrible!” cried Santley. “If this is true, life is a hideous
nightmare--a waking curse. She was too young, too good, to die!”
“It is strange,” returned Haldane thoughtfully, “that you, with your
beautiful faith in immortality, should fear death so much. I have often
noticed this inconsistency in men of your religion. Strong as is
your belief in another life--a life, moreover, of eternal delight and
happiness--you cling with curious tenacity to this life, which, at the
same time, you admit to be miserable. We men of science, on the other
hand, who believe death to be the final dissolution of the creature into
his component element, can contemplate the change with equanimity.”
Santley looked at him in positive horror. Cold as ice, the man discussed
his loss as if it were a mere matter for intellectual argument, a
question in which he felt merely the interest of a dispassionate
spectator of human affairs. And this, with the very shadow of death upon
him; with his wife lying dead in the house, struck down, as it were, by
the very thunderbolt of God. So far, then, he, Santley, was justified.
He had not wronged the man, when he thought him a creature devoid
of common tenderness and feeling, warmed out of his humanity by his
frightful creed of negation. Such a being was beyond the pale of
Christian brotherhood. He had done right; he had not sinned, when he had
sought to lead Mrs. Haldane from the martyrdom of an evil wedlock, to
the shining heights of a happier and more spiritual life.
“How did she die? It must have been very sudden. Tell me, for pity’s
sake!”
“Calm yourself, reverend sir. Ah! you must have a tender disposition to
feel another’s loss so much. You could not feel it more deeply, if you
had lost a person very dear to you--a wife of your own bosom, so to
speak.”
“I--I esteemed the lady,” stammered the clergyman, shrinking before the
others cold, scrutinizing gaze. “She was so good, so noble!”
“Ah! was she not? But you asked me how she died? I think it was some
obscure affection of the _heart_. She was always so emotional, so
impulsive; and latterly, I fear, she was under great excitement. You
will be grieved to hear she passed away in bitter mental pain.”
Santley started. Haldane continued, in the same cold voice, always
keeping his eyes fixed steadily on those of the clergyman.
“There was something on her mind--some load, some trouble, some cruel
self-reproach. I gathered from her fragmentary words that she was
unhappy, that she sought my forgiveness for some fault of which she
considered herself guilty. Whatever that fault was, it preyed upon her
life, and hastened her end.”
“Why did not you send for me? It is horrible to think she died without
the last offices of religion. I would have comforted her, prayed with
her; I-----”
He paused in confusion, shrinking before the other’s steady gaze.
“There was no time,” answered Haldane; “and besides, to be honest, I did
not care to have a clergyman.”
“It was not an outrage!” cried Santley. “It was blasphemous!”
“Pardon me. I don’t believe in confession, even at the extreme moment
and I thought that, if she had anything to reveal, it had better be told
to the person most interested, namely, her husband.”
“Anything to reveal!” exclaimed
Santley, shuddering. “What do you mean?”
“What I say. I am aware you are not a Roman Catholic, but I am afraid
your sentiments lean dangerously to the offices of that pertinacious
priesthood. You would doubtless have asked her to pour her secret into
your ears, with a view to absolution. I preferred to keep her dying
message sacred to myself. If she had erred and was penitent, as I
suppose, no priest, Catholic or Protestant, lay or clerical, could
absolve her?”
Utterly bewildered and aghast, the unfortunate clergyman listened on.
Surely hell had opened, and the thick sulphurous fumes were rising up to
cover and darken the wholesome earth. That cold, grim figure, talking
so calmly and watching him so keenly; that other dark figure of the
Spaniard, still crouching near them in the doorway; surely, too, these
were not men, but devils, sent to torture him and drive him mad. He
looked around him. The snow-clad wood stretched on every side, save
where the white lawns opened, marked with damp black spots of thaw, and
stretching up to the doors of the gloomy mansion; but overhead the dark
heavens had opened for a moment, and one sickly beam, falling aslant
from the vaporous sky, was gleaming on the mansion’s roof. Unconsciously
he fixed his eyes on that spot of brightness, in wonder and in terror,
for he was thinking of the piteous sight within the house.
Dull as his faculties seemed, paralyzed by the extraordinary shock he
had received, he had not failed to understand Haldane’s statement that
his wife had suffered mental agony, and had made, or tried to make, some
kind of confession.. After a long pause, still fixing his eyes on the
sunbeam upon the roof, he murmured, almost vacantly--
“I am not quite myself, and do not seem to comprehend. Did you say that
Mrs. Haldane asked for a clergyman before she died?”
“Certainly. She asked--for _you!_” Had his eyes not been turned away,
he would have been startled by the expression on Haldanes face--so full
of cold satisfaction and contempt.
“For me?” he murmured; “for me?”
“Yes. You had great influence over her--a singular influence.
Perhaps, having been her spiritual adviser and knowing her thoughts so
intimately, you could help me to discover the cause of the sorrow, the
self-reproach, of which I have spoken.”
“I--I do not understand. She always seemed so bright, so happy.”
“She had no cause for secret grief? None, you think?”
“None.”
Unconsciously, as he spoke, he turned and met the gaze of his
cross-questioner. He flushed nervously, and turned his eyes away. Did
Haldane suspect the secret of his love? Had Ellen, before she died,
spoken anything to incriminate him? Surely not; else his reception would
have been different. Yet in her husband’s manner and look, despite his
frigid politeness, there seemed a strange suspicion. The cold, cruel
eyes never ceased to scrutinize him; they seemed to read his very soul.
“I see, reverend sir, that you cannot realize what has taken place.”
“I cannot realize it!”
“You will at least believe the evidence of your own eyes. Step with me
to the house, and look upon her!”
As he spoke, Haldane moved towards the house. After a moment’s
hesitation, Santley followed. Yes, he would look upon her for the last
time; he would kneel and pray beside her. As he walked, he staggered
like a drunken man.
They passed from the dismal shadow of the trees, crossed the snowy lawn,
and ascended the steps leading to the house door. How dark and funereal
looked the old mansion as they entered! All was silent; not a soul
stirred; their footsteps sounded hollow on the paven floor of the open
hall.
Haldane led the way into the drawingroom. The blinds were drawn, there
was no fire, and the chamber seemed like a tomb.
“Wait here one moment,” said Haldane; and he retired, closing the door.
Santley sat and waited. His very life seemed ebbing away within him, but
the low, deep thud of his overburdened heart kept time like a clock,
and his ears were full of a sound like low thunder. His lips were dry as
dust, and he moistened them vainly with his trembling tongue. Even then,
as he sat shivering, he heard again from the distance the faint chime of
the desolate chapel bell.
Toll! toll! toll! toll!
The door opened.
Haldane, bareheaded, appeared on the threshold.
“Come this way,” he said in a whisper.
Santley rose and tremulously followed. Through the dark lobbies, up the
broad staircase, he went in terror, till Haldane paused at the closed
door of the room on the first story, and, placing his finger solemnly on
his lips, turned a key and entered.
Santley followed, and found himself at last in the chamber of death.
It was a large bedchamber, dimly lighted by the faint rays that crept
through the blind, and scented, or so it seemed, with some sickly
perfume. In one corner stood the white, cold bed, snowy sheeted, snowy
curtained; and there, stretched out chill and stark, lay something
whiter and colder--the marble bust of what had once been a living
creature.
Yes, it was she, beautiful even in death. Her eyes were closed, her hair
was smoothed softly over her brows, her face was fixed like marble in
ghastly pallor, her waxen hands were folded on the sheet which covered
her from feet to chin. She almost seemed to be sleeping, not dead, she
was so calm, peaceful, and lovely, in that last repose.
On a small table beside the bed lay her Bible (Santley knew it well; it
was a present from himself, with his own name written on the flyleaf),
and a waxen taper, unlighted. Lying on the coverlet, close to her
fingers, was a wreath of immortelles.
And through the window, which was left open at the top to admit the pure
air, came again, wafted by the wind, the low, dreadful tolling of the
chapel bell.
Toll! toll!
Haldane stood close by the bedside, not looking at his wife, but always
keeping his stern eyes fixed upon the clergyman. Step by step, horrified
yet fascinated, Santley crept nearer and nearer to the bed, his eyes
dilated, his face even more ghastly than the face on which he gazed. He
noticed everything--the marble features, the folded hands, the closed
eyes beneath their waxen lids; he felt in his nostrils the sick perfume
of death.
Then, overmastered by the piteous sight, he raised his arms wildly in
the air, uttered a cry of anguish and despair, and fell, moaning and
sobbing, on his knees by the bedside.