AFTERWARD
These shadows pass; yet to what possible redemption through that blood? Had it not been said that “whoso sheddeth man’s, by man’s shall his be shed.” It was not for that poor sinner to usurp the divine prerogative. Those for whom he suffered must still expiate as they had wrought.
Far on I see them moving—the devoted woman still shadowing the weak man. The old order has passed away, and they with it. The Kingdom of retaliation has risen on the Kingdom of despotism. Savoy is bound with a red ribbon to the republic; its people shout for France; its rulers are betrayed to her. One day these two go to the scaffold.
It is a last mercy that they are permitted to go together. So her life’s purpose shall find its consummation. What sorrows, what disenchantments have been hers in these years of her fading beauty, of her hopelessness for herself, only God may know. They have never affected her steadfast resolve. She has given herself to save her saint for heaven.
Up to the very last her patient lips are shut to him on all that she has done and suffered for his sake. His passage shall be bright and confident. She kisses him and sends him to die before her.
Only then for the first time she seemed to realise what she had done. He had passed in, and the gates were shut between them for ever. They say that she dropped where she stood, and had to be carried under the knife.
[The End]