“Now you know why I could not lead the devotions of others, why I dared not approach the Holy Table. Could I—wretch that I am—offer up petitions with guilty lips, take the emblems of redeeming love into a murderer’s blood-stained hand? No, I could not have so played the hypocrite, or I might have been struck dead on the spot.”
“I cannot believe this frightful tale,” gasped Io;“you have been dreaming it in some fit of delirium. Why should you injure my poor cousin, from whom you parted in friendship, and whom you had not even seen for two years?”
“You know the worst; now hear what may possibly extenuate a little my madness—my guilt.” Oscar spoke in a calmer tone, for he already felt something of relief from frank confession. “When I started from Moulmein to return and claim you as my bride, I was the happiest mortal on earth. Paradise seemed to open before me. The first check to my joy came at Malta, where I found no letter from Io.”
“The one which Thud detained told you why. My mother had been suddenly taken with a fit; in my great anxiety for her dear life I had forgotten the day for writing to Malta. But surely the missing of one post need not have caused you much distress.”
“I was only somewhat troubled,” continued Oscar; “I thought that my betrothed might be ill, I never thought that she could be false. When the pilot met us in the Channel I made sure of a letter, and was foremost in the throng that crowded to the vessel’s side to seize on the contents of his bag. To my great disappointment there was no letter for me in your familiar hand, only one in your cousin’s. I tore that open with feverish haste: Walter would tell me whether you were ill, perhaps—as my fears suggested—dying. There were only two lines written in that fatal letter; they werebranded on my brain as with burning iron—‘Io is mine; I have won the prize.’”
“Oh, the poor foolish boy!” exclaimed Io. “He did not tell you that he had given my name to his hunter, and that in a steeple-chase she was first. I remember Walter’s saying to me that he had played on you a practical joke.”
“A joke which cost the poor fellow his life, and has blasted mine,” groaned Oscar. “The jealousy which I had deemed stifled for ever suddenly blazed up within me, till my soul was as a furnace sevenfold heated. When the Argus neared Dover pier I sprang out, narrowly missing falling into the sea—spectators must have thought me mad. Would that I had been drowned, and so had never lived to look on him whom I hated! I determined to see you at once, and learn the whole truth from your lips. I hurried along the shortest path, that at the top of the cliffs, so often trodden with you. As I passed on I heard a voice gasp out my name; I saw two hands grasping the ground not two yards from the path, and I saw the head of the climber who had just reached the top of the cliff. The face had the flush caused by violent physical effort, but I deemed it the flush of triumph. It was Walter’s face; he had just breath enough left to cry, ‘I’ve won!’ Those were his last words. For a moment I appeared to be possessed by a demon—I was possessed, for I did the deed of which I repented even before I heard the sound of the crash below.”
Io hid her face in her hands and shuddered.
“Then on I sped—a second Cain—resolved but on one thing—to see you, to tax you with your perfidy, and then—I knew not what would follow. You met me with open arms and a cry of delight. You know the rest. For me there is memory of nothing but a kind of hideous dream, till—I know not how long afterwards—you laid before me that letter which proved that you had always been true, and that I had been not only a villain but a fool. Io, for some time I felt that I could not offer you a murderer’s hand; that I should fly from you and the world. Then your altered circumstances, and your mother’s, made me change my mind. I might still give you a husband’s protection, more than a husband’s love, and you should never know that marriage had linked you to one whom you might justly abhor. Io, do you not hate me?”
Io’s only reply was throwing herself on her husband’s breast, with her arms clinging round his neck. Oscar’s confession, made at cost of so much shame and anguish, made him seem dearer than ever.