CHAPTER XXX: EVERY MAN TO HIS OWN PLACE
It was near midnight. Raphael had been sitting some three hours in Miriam’s inner chamber, waiting in vain for her return. To recover, if possible, his ancestral wealth; to convey it, without a day’s delay, to Cyrene; and, if possible, to persuade the poor old Jewess to accompany him, and there to soothe, to guide, perhaps to convert her, was his next purpose:—at all events, with or without his wealth, to flee from that accursed city. And he counted impatiently the slow hours and minutes which detained him in an atmosphere which seemed reeking with innocent blood, black with the lowering curse of an avenging God. More than once, unable to bear the thought, he rose to depart, and leave his wealth behind: but he was checked again by the thought of his own past life. How had he added his own sin to the great heap of Alexandrian wickedness! How had he tempted others, pampered others in evil! Good God! how had he not only done evil with all his might, but had pleasure in those who did the same! And now, now he was reaping the fruit of his own devices. For years past, merely to please his lust of power, his misanthropic scorn, he had been malting that wicked Orestes wickeder than he was even by his own base will and nature; and his puppet had avenged itself upon him! He, he had prompted him to ask Hypatia’s hand.... He had laid, half in sport, half in envy of her excellence, that foul plot against the only human being whom he loved.... and he had destroyed her! He, and not Peter, was the murderer of Hypatia! True, he had never meant her death.... No; but had he not meant for her worse than death? He had never foreseen.... No; but only because he did not choose to foresee. He had chosen to be a god; to kill and to make alive by his own will and law; and behold, he had become a devil by that very act. Who can—and who dare, even if he could—withdraw the sacred veil from those bitter agonies of inward shame and self-reproach, made all the more intense by his clear and undoubting knowledge that he was forgiven? What dread of punishment, what blank despair, could have pierced that great heart so deeply as did the thought that the God whom he had hated and defied had returned him good for evil, and rewarded him not according to his iniquities? That discovery, as Ezekiel of old had warned his forefathers, filled up the cup of his self-loathing.... To have found at last the hated and dreaded name of God: and found that it was Love!.... To possess Victoria, a living, human likeness, however imperfect, of that God; and to possess in her a home, a duty, a purpose, a fresh clear life of righteous labour, perhaps of final victory.... That was his punishment; that was the brand of Cain upon his forehead; and he felt it greater than he could bear.
But at least there was one thing to be done. Where he had sinned, there he must make amends; not as a propitiation, not even as a restitution; but simply as a confession of the truth which he had found. And as his purpose shaped itself, he longed and prayed that Miriam might return, and make it possible.
And Miriam did return. He heard her pass slowly through the outer room, learn from the girls who was within, order them out of the apartments, close the outer door upon them; at last she entered, and said quietly—
‘Welcome! I have expected you. You could not surprise old Miriam. The teraph told me last night that you would be here....’
Did she see the smile of incredulity upon Raphael’s face, or was it some sudden pang of conscience which made her cry out—
‘.... No! I did not! I never expected you! I am a liar, a miserable old liar, who cannot speak the truth, even if I try! Only look kind! Smile at me, Raphael!—Raphael come back at last to his poor, miserable, villainous old mother! Smile on me but once, my beautiful, my son! my son!’
And springing to him, she clasped him in her arms.
‘Your son?’