"Ay, a story of midnight crime--of crime that struck at the roots of the Lukstein race, that breaks the line of a family which has ruled here for centuries, and must in a few years make its very name to perish off the earth. Count Lukstein was the last of his race, and in this room was he slain upon his bridal night."
Sombre as were the words, the priest's voice seemed to have something of exultation in its tone, and unwarily I remarked on it.
"God works out His purposes by ways we cannot understand," he explained, with a humility that struck me as exaggerated and insincere. "Unless Countess Lukstein marries again, the Castle and its demesne will pass into the holy keeping of the Church."
He looked steadily at me while he spoke, and I wondered whether he meant his utterance to convey a menace and warning.
"What if the Countess married a true son of the Church?" I hastened to answer. "Would he not second and further her intention?"
"I think, Mr. Buckler, that you have more faith in mankind than knowledge of the world. But 'twas of the room that we were speaking. Until that crime is brought to light, the room may neither be swept nor cleansed."
"You hope, then, to discover----" I began.
"Nay, nay!" said he. "'Tis not with us that the discovery rests. Look you, sin is not a dead thing like these tables, to which each day adds a covering of dust; it is rather a plant that each day throws out fibres towards the sun, bury it deep as you will in the earth. Surely, surely it will make itself known--this very afternoon, maybe, or maybe in years to come; maybe not until the Day of Wrath. God chooses His own time."
Very solemnly he crossed himself, and led the way back to the bedroom above.
This conversation increased my anxiety to unburden myself to Ilga. For it was no crime that I had committed, but an act of common justice. But although the household, apart from the servants and retainers, who made indeed a veritable army, consisted only of the Countess, Mdlle. Durette, and Father Spaur, as the priest was named, I found it impossible to hit upon an occasion.