CHAPTER XXIII

"MY LIPS ARE CHARGED WITH TRUTH, AND JUSTICE BIDS ME SPEAK"

An early darkness had fallen upon the earth. Black clouds had sailed across the young moon, and the evening breeze had changed into a gale. There was no rain as yet, but every prospect of it near at hand. A mass of lurid, yellowish clouds hung low down over the bending woods, and the wind whistled drearily amongst the fir trees. Paul de Vaux wrapped his cloak tightly around him, and, standing on the turf-covered floor of the ruined chapel, peered forward into the darkness, looking for the man whom he had come to meet. Even then he heard his voice before he could distinguish the dim outline of Father Adrian standing by his side.

"So you have come, Paul de Vaux, and in good time! It is well!"

"I am here!" Paul answered shortly. "If what you have to say to me will take long, come up to the house. It is dark and cold, and there is a storm rising."

The priest shook his head. "I have no wish to find shelter under the roof of Vaux Abbey," he said coldly. "You are well protected against the weather, and so am I. Let us stay here!"

Paul strove to look into his face, but the darkness baffled him. He could only see its outline, nothing of his expression. "As you will," he answered. "Speak! I am ready."

"I have dealt in no idle threats, Paul de Vaux," was the stern answer. "I gave you a chance, and you have thrown it away. Perhaps I did ill ever to offer it to you. But, at any rate, remember this: it is no idle vengeance which I am dealing out to you this night; it is our holy and despoiled Church calling for justice. I speak in her name!"

There was a moment's silence. Paul knew by his companion's bowed head and laboured utterance that he was suffering from some sort of emotion. But the darkness hid from him the workings of his pale features. When he spoke, his voice was low and solemn.

"Paul de Vaux, turn back in your mind to another night such as this, when the thunder of sea and wind shook the air, and the anger of God seemed fallen upon the earth. On that night your father lay dying in the island monastery of Cruta; and while you were risking your life in the storm to reach him, I knelt by his side praying for his soul, that it might not sink down amongst the damned in hell. He was a brave man, but with the icy hand of death closing around him fear touched his heart. It was no craven fear! He lay there still and quiet, but his heart was troubled. In the midst of my prayers he stopped me, and took the crucifix into his own hand.

"'Father,' he said, 'I have no faith in dying repentances. I have scouted religion all my life, and on my deathbed I will not cry for comfort to a Divinity which is a myth to me. Yet, as man to man, listen while I tell you a secret; and when I have finished, do you pray for me.'

"Shall I go on, Paul de Vaux? Shall I tell you all that your father's dying lips faltered out to me?"

"All! every word! Keep nothing back!" Paul spoke quickly, almost feverishly. He knew a little, but something told him that this priest knew more. He began dimly to suspect the nature of the revelation which was to come.

"You shall know everything," Father Adrian continued, in the same hushed tone, so low that Paul had to bend forward to catch the words as they fell from his lips. "If Martin de Vaux had been of our religion, and had sought me as a priest of the Church a seal would have been set upon my mouth. But it was not so! Despite all my ministrations, he died as he had lived, in heresy and grievous sin. After all, it is only right that you, his son, should know what he forebore to tell you. Yet, in my weakness I might have spared you, if you yourself had not brought down this blow upon your head."

Paul raised his hand, and Father Adrian paused. "Listen," he said, in a low, deep tone. "There are secret pages in the lives of most of us—pages blurred and scarred with misery and suffering and sin. But there is a difference—a great difference. Some are turned over with firm and penitent fingers, and, although their scarlet record may never be blotted out, yet, by sacrifice and atonement, the fruits of the sin itself may die, and, dying, cast no shadow into the future. A sin against humanity can often be righted by human justice. Towards the close of my father's days, I knew for the first time that there was in his life one of those disfigured pages. He told me nothing. I sought to know nothing. Father Adrian," Paul went on, with a sudden strain of passion in his tone, and a gesture half unseen in the darkness, "if the shadow of his sin rests upon any human being, if it still lives upon the earth, then tell me all that is in your heart to tell, for there is work to be done. But if that page be locked and sealed, if those who suffered through it are dead, and the burden which darkened my father's days is his alone, then spare his memory! Strike at me, if you will! Deal out your promised vengeance, but let it fall on me alone!"

Paul ended his speech with a little burst of passion ringing in those last few words. He was conscious of a deep and fervent desire to hear nothing, to listen to nothing, which could teach him to hold less dear his father's memory. He shrank, with a human and perfectly natural feeling, from hearing evil of the dead. That last evil deed, the murder in that grim, bare chamber of death, had haunted him with vivid and painful intensity. But it was a crime by itself. It was horrible to imagine that it might indeed be the culmination of a life of license and contempt of all human laws. He had tried to think of it as something outside his father's life, something done in a momentary fit of madness, and that the man who suffered by it was some monster unfit for the companionship of his fellows—unfit to live. There were still tales to be heard in the county, and about town even, of the wild doings of Martin de Vaux in his younger days; but none of these had reached his son's ears. He would have been the last person likely to hear of them.

There was a short silence, and before Father Adrian spoke again the low-lying clouds were swept over their heads by a gale from seaward, and the wind commenced to whistle and shriek in the pine wood, and roar amongst the crumbling ruins, which scarcely afforded them protection from the blinding rain. Any further conversation was impossible. Paul lifted up his voice, and shouted in his companion's ear—

"These walls are not safe! We must go into the house. Will you come?"

Father Adrian hesitated, and then assented, wrapping his cloak around him. In a few moments they were inside the library, having entered through a private door and met no one. Breathless, Paul threw off his cloak, which was dripping with rain, and turned round almost fiercely upon his companion.

"Now speak!" he said. "I am ready to hear all."

The priest looked at him steadily for a moment, and then, with his pale face turned towards the fire, he commenced to speak.

"Sin is everlasting!" he said slowly. "Your father's sin lives, and on you the burden must fall! If you had kept the covenant which I placed before you, I might have spared you. You yourself have chosen. You must hear all! Listen!

"It was by chance that I was spending two months in charge of the monastery of St. Jerome, at Cruta, when your father arrived," he continued, without any pause. "He sought our hospitality and he at once obtained it. For two days he dwelt with us, spending his time for the most part in idle fashion, wandering about along the seashore or on the cliffs, but always with the look on his face of a man who does but dally with some fixed purpose. His doings were nothing to me, but by chance, from one of the brethren, I learnt that he was no stranger to the island—that once, many years ago, he had been the guest of the lord who ruled the little territory, and whose castle overshadows the monastery.

"On the third day of his stay, he remained within his guest-chamber until sundown, writing. As the vesper-bell rang I met him in the corridor, dressed for walking, and from his countenance I judged that whatever his mission to the island might be, he was about to bring it to an end. He passed me without speech, almost as though he had not seen me, and left the monastery. A few minutes afterwards, looking down from the windows to watch the brethren come in from their field tasks, I saw him take the road up to the castle.

"It was in the middle of the night when he returned. Midnight had come and gone, and every one in the monastery was asleep, when the hoarse, clanging bell down in the yard rang slightly, as though pulled by feeble fingers. I threw my cloak over my shoulders, and descended to admit him. When the last of the huge bolts had been withdrawn, and I threw the door open, I found him leaning against the wall, with his fingers clutched together in agony, and his bloodless features convulsed with pain. The moonlight was falling right across his face, pale and ghastly with pain, and by its light I seemed to see something dark dropping from him on the white flags. I leaned forward, horror-stricken, and I saw that it was blood."

"My God!"

Paul was standing very still and rigid, with his eyes fastened upon the priest. As yet, he scarcely realized anything more than that he was being told a very horrible story. But he was conscious of a feverish impatience, quite beyond his control. When Father Adrian paused at his exclamation, he beat the ground with his foot impatiently. "Go on! Go on!" he said hoarsely.

"I had no time to ask questions," the priest continued quietly. "Directly he left the support of the wall, and endeavoured to move towards me, your father threw up his arms with a sharp cry of pain, and almost fell upon his face. I was just in time to catch him, and exerting all my strength—for he was a powerful man—I dragged him up the steps and along the corridor to the nearest empty cell. There I laid him down upon a bed of ferns, and then hurried out to summon one of the brethren who was skilled in medicine.

"In a few moments he returned with me. By his direction, I gave your father brandy and other restoratives, while he cut open his coat to find out, if he could, the nature of the wound. It was easily discovered. He had been stabbed by a long dagger just below the heart. Had the dagger entered one-sixteenth of an inch higher, he must have bled to death upon the spot.

"We bound up the hurt as well as we could, and with the help of other of the monks, we carried him up to the guest-chamber, and put him to bed. In about half an hour he recovered consciousness, and called me to his side.

"'Pencil, paper,' he whispered.

"I handed him both. After several futile efforts he succeeded in writing a few words. Then he folded up the note, and handed it to me.

"'If you will send it without delay,' he whispered, 'I will give one hundred pounds to the monastery.'

"I never hesitated, for our funds were in a desperate state; but first I glanced at the direction. It was addressed to—

PAUL DE VAUX, Esq.,
c/o The English Consul,
Palermo.

"I promised that it should be sent, and, as you know, it was. Then I sent the others out of the room, and inquired about his hurt. He set his lips firm, and shook his head.

"'It was an accident,' he faltered. 'No one was to blame.'

"I told him briefly that it was impossible. The nature of his wound was such that it was clearly the work of an assassin. In a certain sense we were the upholders of the law on the island, and I pointed this out to him sternly. He only shook his head and closed his eyes. Neither then nor at any other time could I gain from him one single word as to his doings on that night. He would tell me nothing."

"You saw him going toward the castle," Paul interrupted. "Did you make inquiries there?"

The priest shook his head slowly. "No, I made no inquiries," he answered. "It was no matter for my interference. The castle, although it is a huge place, was deserted save for a few native servants, whose patois was unintelligible to me. There were only two who dwelt there—the old Count himself, and one other—to whom I could have gone. Several nights after your father's illness I left the monastery, and tried to see the Count. He would not even have me admitted, and on my return, your father, who had guessed the reason of my absence, sent for me. He judged of the ill success of my mission, by my face, and he instantly appeared relieved. He then called me to the bedside, and made me an offer. He would give me, as a further contribution to our exhausted funds, a large sum of money on this condition—that I took no further steps in any direction towards ascertaining the nature of his accident, as he chose to call it, and that I should not mention it to you as the cause of his illness, or refer to it in any way if you arrived while he was there. I hesitated for some time, but in the end I consented. The money in itself was a great temptation—you see, I am frank with you—and, apart from that, your father at that time was on the verge of his fever, and at such a critical time I feared the ill results of not falling in with his wishes. So I promised, and I kept my promise; no one—not even you—knew that he died from that dagger thrust, and during the remainder of my stay on the island, I asked no questions concerning his visit to the castle."

"But did you hear nothing? were there no reports?" Paul asked.

Father Adrian hesitated. "There were no reports about your father," he said, "but the castle itself was always the object of the most unbounded superstition on the part of the inhabitants. They told strange tales of midnight cries, of lights from blocked-up chambers, and of the old Count who still dwelt there, although he had not been seen outside the castle walls for many a year. He was reported to have sold himself to the Evil One, and at the very mention of his name the people crossed themselves in terror, and glanced uneasily over their shoulders."

"Idle tales!" cried Paul angrily. "Tell me, Father Adrian, did you know this Count of Cruta?"

There was a moment's silence. Father Adrian's face was turned away, and he seemed in no hurry to answer. "Yes, I knew him."

"You knew him! What is he like? Tell me!"

The priest shook his head. "I have nothing to tell you," he said in a low tone.

"You mean that you will not tell me."

The priest inclined his head. Paul turned upon him fiercely, "He was my father's murderer," he cried.

"It may be so. But remember that nothing is known! Remember, too, that your father's last wish was to keep secret the manner of his death!"

Paul seemed scarcely to have heard him. He was walking restlessly up and down the apartment. Presently he stopped in front of Father Adrian's chair.

"You have told me what happened to my father on the island," he said; "now tell me the story of his life, which you say that he confided to you. I must know what took him there."