"And now?"
"And now you know why I have changed. That day, as I went down into the
land of the sunshine, I made a vow."
"A vow?"
"Yes; to be his crown, not his cross. I soon returned to England. At
first I was happy, and then one day my old evil nature came upon me like
a giant. I fell again into sin, and, even as I sinned, I saw his face
looking into mine, Bernard, pale, pale to the lips, and with eyes--such
sad eyes of reproach! Then I thought I was not fit to live, and I tried
to kill myself. They saved me, and brought me here."
"Yes; and now, Hubert?"
"Now," he said, "I am so happy. God surely placed me here where I cannot
sin. The days pass and the nights, and they are stainless. And he--he
comes by night and blesses me. I live for him now, and see always the
grey walls of his monastery, his face which shall, at last, be
completely mine."
* * * * *
"Good-bye," the doctor said to me as I got into the carriage to drive
back to the station. "Yes, he is perfectly happy, happier in his mania,
I believe, than you or I in our sanity."
I drove away from that huge home of madness, set in the midst of lovely
gardens in a smiling landscape, and I pondered those last words of the
doctor's:--
"You and I--in our sanity."
And, thinking of the peace that lay on Hubert's face, I compared the
so-called mad of the world with the so-called sane--and wondered.