"What hopes, what yearnings, what ambitions, were here destroyed by me! For, setting aside the unhappy sentiment which had conducted events to this end, M. Gabriel was a man of genius, of whose career high expectations had been formed. I had not only destroyed a human being, I had destroyed art. Would it have been better had I allowed myself to be killed? Were death preferable to a life weighed down by a crime such as mine?
"For a short time these reflections had sway over me, but presently I steadily argued them down. I would not allow them to unman me. This coward and traitor had met a just doom.
"What remained for me now to do was to complete the concealment. The body must be hidden. After to-night--unless chance or the hand of Providence led to its discovery--the lifeless clay at my feet must never more be seen.
"There was a part of my grounds seldom, if ever, intruded upon by the servants--that portion in which, for the gratification of my wife, I had at the time of our marriage commenced improvements which had never been completed. There it was that my wife's mother had met with the accident which resulted in her death. I thought of a pit deep enough for the concealment of the bodies of fifty men. Into this pit I would throw the body of M. Gabriel, and would cover it with earth and stones. The task accomplished, there would be little fear of discovery.
"First satisfying myself that all was quiet and still in the villa, and that I was not being watched, I raised the body of M. Gabriel in my arms. As I did so, a horror and loathing of myself took possession of me; I shuddered in disgust; the work I was performing seemed to be the work of a butcher.
"However, what I resolved to do was done. In the dead of night, with darkness surrounding me, with the rain beating upon me, and the accusing wind shrieking in my ears, I consigned to its last resting-place the body of the man I had killed.
"Years have passed since that night. My name has not been dragged into the light for scandal-mongers to make sport of. Open shame and derision have been avoided--but at what a price! From the day following that upon which I forbade M. Gabriel my house, not a single word was exchanged between my wife and myself. She sent for me before she died, but she knew she would be dead before I arrived. A fearful gloom settled upon our lives, and will cover me to my last hour. This domestic estrangement, this mystery of silence between those whom he grew to love and honour, weighed heavily upon my son Christian. His child's soul must have suffered much, and at times I have fancied I see in him the germs of a combination of sweetness and weakness which may lead to suffering. But suffer as he may, if honour be his guide I am content. I shall not live to see him as a man; my days are numbered.
"In the time to come--in the light of a purer existence--I may learn whether the deed I have done is or is not a crime.
"But one thing is clear to me. Had it not been for my folly, shame would not have threatened me, misery would not have attended me, and I should not have taken a human life. The misery and the shame did not affect me alone; they waited upon a young life and blighted its promise. It is I who am culpable, I who am responsible for what has occurred. It is impossible, without courting unhappiness, to divert the currents of being from their natural channels: youth needs youth, is attracted to youth, seeks youth, as flowers seek the sun. Roses do not grow in ice.
"Mine, then, the sin--a sin too late to expiate.