|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 the
_presbytère_ he 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 save _himself!_ 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 his _soutane_. 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's _soutane_, 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, _that_ is 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 a _priest_ should
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 this _soutane_; 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, _pray_ with 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 them _hammering!_
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 that _hammering_
and--“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 his _soutane_, 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.
“He is asleep,” he said. “Do not disturb him.”
“Asleep!”--the turnkey in amazement thrust his head inside the cell; and
then he looked in wonder at Raymond. “Asleep--but Monsieur Lemoyne told
me of the news when he went out. Asleep--after that! The man who never
sleeps!”
But Raymond only shook his head, and did not answer, and walked on down
the corridor, and out into the courtyard. It was dusk now. He seemed to
be moving purely by intuition. It was not the way--the man was to live.
His mind was obsessed with that. It was not the way. There were two ways
left--two out of the three.
The turnkey, who had followed in respectful silence, spoke again as he
opened the jail gates.
“_Au revoir_, Monsieur le Cure”--he lifted his cap. “Monsieur le Curé
will return to-morrow?”
To-morrow! Raymond's hands fumbled with the halter, as he untied the
horse. To-morrow! There were two ways left, and the time was short.
To-morrow--what would to-morrow bring!
“Perhaps,” he said, unconscious that his reply had been long
delayed--and found that he was speaking to closed gates, and that the
turnkey was gone.
And then Raymond smiled as he seated himself in the buckboard and drove
away--the smile a curious twitching of the lips. The turnkey was a
tactful man who would not intrude upon Monsieur le Curé's so easily
understood sorrow for the condemned man!
He drove on through the town, and turned into the St. Marleau road that
wound its way for miles along the river's shore. And as he had driven
slowly on his way to the jail, so he drove slowly on his return to the
village, the horse left almost to guide itself and to set its own pace.
The dusk deepened, and the road grew dark--it seemed fitting that the
road should grow dark. There were two ways left. The jaws of the trap
were narrowing--one of the three ways was gone. There were two left.
Either he must stand in that other's place, and hang in that other's
place; or run for it with what start he could, throw them off his trail
if he could, and write from somewhere a letter that would exonerate
the other and disclose the priest's identity---a letter to the Bishop
unquestionably, if the letter was to be written at all, for the Bishop,
not only because he knew the man personally and could at once establish
his identity, but because, in the very nature of the case, with the life
of one of his own curés at stake, the Bishop, above all other men,
would have both the incentive and the power to act. Two ways! One was a
ghastly, ignominious death, to hang by the neck until he was dead--the
other was to be a fugitive from the law, to become a hunted, baited
beast, fighting every moment with his wits for the right to breathe.
There were two ways! One was death--one held a chance for life. And the
time was short.
It was the horse that turned of its own accord in past the church, and
across the green to the _presbytère_.
He left the horse standing there--Narcisse would come and get it
presently--and went up the steps, and entered the house. The door of the
front room was open, a light burned upon his desk. Along the hall, from
the dining room, Madame Lafleur came hurrying forward smilingly.
“Supper is ready, Monsieur le Curé,” she called out cheerily. “Poor
man, you must be tired--it was a long drive to take so soon after your
illness, and before you were really strong again.”
“I am late,” said Raymond; “that is the main thing, Madame Lafleur. I
put you always, it seems, to a great deal of trouble.”
“Tut!” she expostulated, shaking her head at him as she smiled. “It
is scarcely seven o'clock. Trouble! The idea! We did not wait for you,
Monsieur le Curé, because Valérie had to hurry back to Madame Blondin.
Madame Blondin is very, very low, Monsieur le Curé. Doctor Arnaud, when
he left this afternoon, said that--but I will tell you while you are
eating your supper. Only first--yes--wait--it is there on your desk.
Monsieur Labbée sent it over from the station this afternoon--a
telegram, Monsieur le Curé.”
A telegram! He glanced swiftly at her face. It told him nothing. Why
should it!
“Thank you,” he said, and stepping into the front room, walked over to
the desk, picked up the yellow-envelope, tore it open calmly, and read
the message.
His back was toward the door. He laid the slip of paper down upon the
desk, and with that curious trick of his stretched out his hand in front
of him, and held it there, and stared at it. It was steady--without
tremor. It was well that it was so. He would need his nerve now. He had
been quite right--the time was short. There remained--_one hour_. In
an hour from now, on the evening train, Monsignor the Bishop, who was
personally acquainted with Father François Aubert, would arrive in St.
Marleau.