A few hours later the heavy iron door was unlocked, then clanged
together again, shutting Lawrence Ernscliffe in alone with the condemned
prisoner.
They looked at each other in blank silence for a minute, then the
visitor said coldly:
"You sent for me?"
"Yes, I sent for you," said the prisoner, eagerly. "I have wronged you
and would make reparation before--before to-morrow."
The fire of rage and hatred that flared up in the listener's eyes was
dreadful to behold.
"You lied to me--how dared you do it?" he exclaimed, hoarsely. "Did I
not say I would have your life if I found you out?"
"The few hours of life that remain to me are not worth your vengeance,"
was the quiet reply. "Sit down, Captain Ernscliffe, I would speak to you
of your wife."
He pointed to a chair, but the visitor shook his head.
"No, I prefer standing. I can scarcely breathe the same air with you,
Leon Vinton! Speak quickly."
"Do not look on me as your enemy now, Captain Ernscliffe," said the
prisoner, deprecatingly. "I stand apart from my fellow-men as a
condemned criminal about to be executed.
"Think of me as a wretched sinner trying to make peace with those whom I
have wronged that I may plead for pardon before my offended God."
Captain Ernscliffe bowed silently, and the angry flash in his dark eyes
faded out at the melancholy tone and air of the frightened and wretched
criminal.
"I lied to you when I told you that I did not marry Queenie Lyle," said
Leon Vinton, looking down and speaking in a low, hoarse voice.
"The day she ran away with me I married her, and the certificate was
placed in her hands.
"She thought she was my wife, but the pretended minister who performed
the ceremony was only a boon companion of mine who had served me before
in such an accommodating manner.
"It was the merest farce, but Queenie thought she was my legal wife.
"She would not have gone with me else. She was as pure and innocent as
an angel."
He paused a moment, but he did not look up. He could not bear to meet
the tiger glare in the eyes of the man before him. Clearing his throat
nervously, he continued:
"I lived with her a year, and then we mutually wearied of each other.
"Her keen intuition soon showed her that she had been deceived in me,
and that I was far different from the ideal which she had placed on a
lofty pedestal and worshiped for awhile as a god among men.
"She scorned me then, and I hated her because she had found me out. In
my rage I told her the truth, and then I tried to kill her."
"My God!" Captain Ernscliffe muttered, clenching his hands as though he
would have torn the villain limb from limb.
"I thought I had killed her," pursued Vinton. "I strangled her with both
my hands.
"I threw her down and trampled upon her beautiful face that had been her
ruin.
"I hurriedly dug her a shallow grave, covered her over with the wet
earth and leaves, and hastened back to the cottage by the river where we
had lived together."
"Fiend!" thundered Captain Ernscliffe, springing furiously upon him.
The prisoner, chained as he was, could offer no resistance to his
infuriated assailant. He did not even utter a cry.
But all in a moment Captain Ernscliffe remembered himself, and drew back
before he had struck the fatal blow he had meditated. He would not harm
a defenseless man.
"I will not kill you," he said, hoarsely, "but finish your story
quickly. I can scarcely bear your presence."
"It was the first murder I had ever attempted," said the prisoner, after
a long-drawn breath. "Naturally enough, I felt nervous over it.
"I walked up and down the river-bank for hours in the rain, trying to
excuse myself to myself.
"Then all of a sudden she came up behind me, and pushed me in, and ran
away.
"It was then that she went home to her parents. They took her back, kept
her terrible secret, and married her to you.
"If I had let her alone then, all might have gone well," pursued the
prisoner, "but I hated her for her maddened blow that dark, rainy night.
"I swore revenge. It was I who sent her the bouquet of flowers that
caused her seeming death at the altar that night.
"I resurrected her, and made her a prisoner. She escaped the day that
Farmer Thorn shot me.
"She thought I was dead, but as soon as I recovered from my wound I
started out upon her trail again, still pursuing my hellish scheme of
vengeance.
"But she escaped me for years, and I never met her again, until the
night that I murdered her sister.
"I had just reached London that night, and went into the theater, full
of idle curiosity to see La Reine Blanche, the beautiful idol of the
hour.
"The moment she came upon the stage I recognized in the great actress
the lovely girl I had treated so inhumanly.
"In an instant I conceived my diabolical plan of revenge. I hurried out
of the theater, sent that note to her dressing-room, and waited at the
western door.
"The woman who came had the voice, the form, the step of Queenie, and I
plunged my dagger in her heart. I killed Sydney, but the blow was meant
for Queenie."
He stopped, and there was silence in the gloomy prison-cell, while the
criminal waited for Ernscliffe to speak.
"You are telling me the truth?" he demanded, hoarsely.
"As God is my judge, and on the word of a dying man. Let Queenie tell
you her story and she will corroborate my words. I have pursued her
pitilessly, remorselessly. I have wronged her beyond all reparation, yet
she is as pure, and true, and innocent to-day as she was that fatal hour
when I first met her, a happy, thoughtless girl, selling her painted fan
to buy her simple ball-dress. My terrible sin against her is enough of
itself to drag my soul down to the lowest depths of perdition!" added
the prisoner, with a hollow groan.
"You have indeed sinned fearfully, and God will punish you," said
Captain Ernscliffe, turning to go.
"A moment longer," pleaded the unhappy wretch. "Say that you forgive me
before you go."
"Never in this world or in the next!" cried Captain Ernscliffe,
furiously.
The grated door unclosing, let in the priest who was to spend the night
with the condemned man.
He caught their parting words.
"My son, my son," he said, laying his withered hand on Ernscliffe's arm,
"forgive the poor soul; he is almost beyond your resentment. Think where
his soul will be to-morrow night. Give him your hand in token of
pardon."
"No, no," said the listener, shuddering; "I will not touch his hand,
but--but"--with a great effort--"I will forgive him."
"Tell _her_ to forgive me, too," said Leon Vinton, looking at him with
his wild, frightened face. "Tell her I am sorry--tell her that I repent.
She is an angel. She will forgive me."
The door closed upon the retreating form, and the gentle priest knelt
down and began to pray for the guilty soul so soon to be launched into a
dread eternity.