“Look here. If I will stay and deliver that message for you, will you do something for me?”
“I? What can I do for any one?”
“You are a woman, though not, it seems, a very loving one. You can tell me if there is any forgiveness for the hurt I gave that girl, and if there is, absolve me in love’s name! I cannot bear her eyes.”
“Love forgives everything,” she answered, simply. “Wait until you see Arthur’s face when you tell him I was sorry. That will show you.”
“Say it!” murmured the man, peremptorily. “Let me hear the words, as she might say them.”
She turned upon her side to smile at him. Her voice had grown so faint that it seemed but a disembodied, yearning tenderness that spoke.
“In love’s name, then, and hers, absolvo te”—And the thread of sound dropped into a silence that was to remain unbroken.
The man lay still, clenching his hands and unclenching them. The thrusts of pain had grown very sharp, but he grimly set his teeth. He might ask for morphine; but if he took it “Arthur” might come and go while he lay in stupor, and the message remain forever undelivered. He looked at the clock on the opposite wall. Perhaps he had still three hours to wait. What should he do? That last dart was keenest of them all. What did people do in torture, people who had made promises that they must stay to keep? Surely there was something. Ah, that was it. Of course. They prayed. Then why not he, as well?
His lips moved feverishly.
“Christ, thou who suffered for love’s sake, give me—give me the pluck to hold out three hours more.”