And what of the other boy who had so often sat with his lesson books in this room, at whose feet Fate was about to fling a rôle of which he might make something great and noble . . . if he could take it up. For a man worthily to lead a religious war he must be more than a great soldier, more than a natural leader, he must be a saint. And Gilbert?
Another critic would have urged to himself that the Marquis’ private life was stainless, his dealings with his dependents marked by invariable uprightness and generosity, his ability as a soldier, though untried in actual practice, guaranteed to a large degree by his brilliant studies and by his marked capacity for organisation. M. des Graves did not cast a thought on these things; there was something deeper than all these which was lacking. The peasantry among whom Château-Foix lived, simply and without ostentation, and to whose interests he had sacrificed his own, respected, admired, perhaps a little feared him, but they did not love him. Did they, too, feel that coldness, that intense moderation, that lack of enthusiasm which had made of his existence, until lately, but half a life? Did they know—they must know—what barrenness of soul was covered by his minimum of religious observance? If they were ignorant of it now, they would learn it all too soon, and the men ready to die for their altars would find that their leader knew little of the inspiration which was theirs.
The pity of it! The pity . . . yes, and whose was the blame?
Since Gilbert’s return from England to take up his father’s estates the priest had sought, if anything, to withdraw his influence. He had carefully prepared and trained a mind, hoping that with a right prejudice it might go on to find its own perfection. And instead of this—well, Gilbert was what he was now. It was the path which the priest had chosen deliberately, carefully, not without conflict—and to what had it led? The tool which he might have fashioned for such an hour of need as this was useless. To what end, then, had he abstained from moulding that beloved spirit? All these years, when he had sought to divert allegiance from himself, he had been following an impossible and a visionary ideal. And now it was too late.
And he loved Gilbert so dearly! Above all others he would fain have called him his son; it was for that very reason that he had kept himself apart from him. And this son would soon be fighting in a holy war, living in hourly danger of death, perhaps dying alone, unreconciled to the Church. His was not only the yearning of the priest, but of the childless man also. What would he not give in exchange for Gilbert’s soul, if only it might be granted to him? Yes, awful though they were, those words, he could use them. . . . For Gilbert’s sake he was willing to be himself a castaway.
His hands slid from his face and knitted themselves together in front of him on the table, and his head fell forward on to them. If it were possible. . . . God! God! if it were possible. . . .
The rain beat still more violently upon the panes, but in the room was a long stillness like death, and in that stillness, while his body lay bowed over the table, the priest’s will, rising into regions not subject to space and time, made at last the supreme act of surrender, and yielded up to the Divine Purpose, not its own eternal welfare, but that of its best beloved.
When he came back to the world of sense, M. des Graves discovered himself leaning back in his chair, his hands no longer clenched in entreaty but lying open on the table, palms uppermost, in a gesture of offering. He remained so for a moment, and putting up a hand to his forehead, found it dripping with sweat. After that he sat a long time motionless, looking at the crucifix which stood in front of him.
And in his mind, not as a sudden after-revelation, but quite clear and developed, as if he had brought it back from the mysterious places in which he had been, was the sense that the circumstances for Gilbert’s salvation existed, ready and waiting, if only he could be brought to use them.