The Cure came to his feet with a joyful cry. “Monsieur--my son,” he
said, bending over him.
“Is it all over?” Charley asked calmly, almost cheerfully. Death now was
the only solution of life’s problems, and he welcomed it from the void.
The Cure went to the door and locked it. The deepest desire of his life
must here be uttered, his great aspiration be realised.
“My son,” he said, as he came softly to the bedside again, “you have
given to us all you had--your charity, your wisdom, your skill. You have
“--it was hard, but the man’s wound was mortal, and it must be said “you
have consecrated our new church with your blood. You have given all to
us; we will give all to you--”
There was a soft knocking at the door. He went and opened it a very
little. “He is conscious, Rosalie,” he whispered. “Wait--wait--one
moment.”
Then came the Seigneur’s voice saying that Jo was gone, and that all the
robbers had escaped, save the two disposed of by Charley and Jo.
The Cure turned to the bed once more. “What did he say about Jo?”
Charley asked.
“He is dead, my son, and the quack-doctor also. The others have
escaped.”
Charley turned his face away. “Au revoir, Jo,” he said into the great
distance.
Then there was silence for a moment, while outside the door a girl
prayed, with an old woman’s arm around her.
The Cure leaned over Charley again. “Shall not the sacraments of the
Church comfort you in your last hours?” he said. “It is the way, the
truth, and the life. It is the Voice that says: ‘Peace’ to the vexed
mind. Human intellect is vanity; only the soul survives. Will you not
hear the Voice? Will you not give us who love and honour you the right
to make you ours for ever? Will you not come to the bosom of that Church
for which you have given all?”
“Tell them so,” Charley said, and he motioned towards the window, under
which the people were gathered.
With a glad exclamation the Cure hastened to the window, and, in a voice
of sorrowful exultation, spoke to the people below.
Charley reckoned swiftly with his fate. What was there now to do? If his
wound was not mortal, what tragedy might now come! For Billy’s hand--the
hand of Kathleen’s brother--had brought him low. If the robbers and
murderers were captured, he must be dragged into the old life, and
to what an issue--all the old problems carried into more terrible
conditions. And Rosalie--in his half-consciousness he had felt her near
him; he felt her near him now. Rosalie--in any case, what could there
be for her? Nothing. He had heard the Cure whisper her name at the door.
She was outside-praying for him. He stretched out a hand as though he
saw her, and his lips framed her name. In his weakness and fading life
he had no anguish in the thought of her. Life and Love were growing
distant though he loved her as few love and live. She would be removed
from want by him--there were the pearls and the money in the safe with
the money of the Church; there was the letter to the Cure, his last
testament, leaving all to her. He, sleeping, would fear no foe; she,
awake in the living world, would hold him in dear remembrance. Death
were the better thing for all. Then Kathleen in her happiness would
be at peace; and even Billy might go unmolested, for, who was there to
recognise Billy, now that Portugais was dead?
He heard the Cure’s voice at the window--“Oh, my dear people, God has
given him to us at last. I go now to prepare him for his long journey,
to--”
Charley realised and shuddered. Receive the sacraments of the Church?
Be made ready by the priest for his going hence--end all the soul’s
interrogations, with the solving of his own mortal problems? Say “I
believe,” confess his sins, and, receiving absolution, lie down in
peace.
He suddenly raised himself on his elbow, flinging his body over. The
bandage of his wound was displaced, and blood gushed out upon the white
clothes of the bed. “Rosalie!” he gasped. “Rosalie, my love!
God keep...”
As he sank back he heard the priest’s anguished voice above him, calling
for help. He smiled.
“Rosalie--” he whispered. The priest ran and unlocked the door, and
Rosalie entered, followed by the Seigneur and Mrs. Flynn.
“Quick! Quick!” said the priest. “The bandage slipped.”
The bandage slipped--or was it slipped? Who knows!
Blind with agony, and as in a direful dream, Rosalie made her way to the
bed. The sight of his ensanguined body roused her, and, murmuring his
name--continually murmuring his name--she assisted Mrs. Flynn to bind
up the wound again. Standing where she stood when she had stayed Louis
Trudel’s arm long ago, with an infinite tenderness she touched the
scar-the scar of the cross--on his breast. Terrible as was her grief,
her heart had its comfort in the thought--who could rob her of that for
ever?--that he would die a martyr. It did not matter now who knew the
story of her love. It could not do him harm. She was ready to proclaim
it to all the world. And those who watched knew that they were in the
presence of a great human love.
The priest made ready to receive the unconscious man into the Church.
Had Charley not said, “Tell them so?” Was it not now his duty to say the
sacred offices over a son of the Church in his last bitter hour? So it
was done while he lay unconscious.
For hours he lay still, and then the fevered blood, poisoned by
the bullet which had brought him down, made him delirious, gave him
hallucinations--open-eyed illusions. All the time Rosalie knelt at the
foot of the bed, her piteous tearless eyes for ever fixed on his face.
Towards evening, with an unnatural strength, he sat up in bed.
“See,” he whispered, “that woman in the corner there. She has come
to take me, but I will not go.” Fantasy after fantasy possessed
him-fantasy, strangely mixed with facts of his own past. Now it was
Kathleen, now Billy, now Jo Portugais, now John Brown, now Suzon
Charlemagne at the Cote Dorion, again Jo Portugais. In strange, touching
sentences he spoke to them, as though they were present before him. At
length he stopped abruptly, and gazed straight before him--over the head
of Rosalie into the distance.
“See,” he said, pointing, “who is that? Who? I can’t see his face--it
is covered. So tall-so white! He is opening his arms to me. He is
coming--closer--closer. Who is it?”
“It is Death, my son,” said the priest in his ear, with a pitying
gentleness.
The Cure’s voice seemed to calm the agitated sense, to bring it back to
the outer precincts of understanding. There was an awe-struck silence
as the dying man fumbled, fumbled, over his breast, found his eye-glass,
and, with a last feeble effort, raised it to his eye, shining now with
an unearthly fire. The old interrogation of the soul, the elemental
habit outlived all else in him. The idiosyncrasy of the mind
automatically expressed itself.
“I beg--your--pardon,” he whispered to the imagined figure, and the
light died out of his eyes, “have I--ever--been--introduced--to you?”
“At the hour of your birth, my son,” said the priest, as a sobbing cry
came from the foot of the bed.
But Charley did not hear. His ears were for ever closed to the voices of
life and time.