“I have been preparing for my wife,” he said. “She comes to-morrow.”
I think I must have received this intelligence with something akin to pleasure, because he looked pleased.
“You must come across to see us,” he suggested, “as she rarely goes beyond the grounds. I think you will be friends,” and he looked at me curiously in a way I neither understood nor cared to understand.
I went to bed that night more feeble than before. I dismissed the attendant on entering the room and lay down in excessive weakness. I gave a heavy sigh, hoping to find relief, but I found that sigh followed sigh; it was the gasping pain of which they all complained, though silently. Then I knew this was going to be my end, and I was thankful I was alone, since when the pain had passed the rest would come, by total death or change. Gazing over to the wall I saw an altar shining, and a crucifix above. I rose from the bed. Must I go too? All so far had done so in the cells. Each died beside the altar. And there I went, and in great weakness stumbled forward, dying from weakness by its crimson side.
A light fell from the crucifix, and on a sudden a wild, clear cry rang through the stillness.
“Come! Come away—away,” and the last word tingled till it pierced something, I think it must have been the blackness.
With a strength which could not be my own I rose and moved unquestioning toward the door. I passed out into the silent corridor, down the white steps to the door that led into the church. This place I had not visited since first I came, and now in the clear white light of night each jewelled throne and golden pillar shone like brilliant eyes all watching me. Silently down the nave I moved toward the doors, and through them, out onto the marble steps, away through the wooded grounds down to the avenue by which I came—along the dark, grand road, even unto the heavy portal which swung open silently and let me pass. Then came the wilderness with marsh lights shining in the distance, faint will-o’-the-wisps, which lead mortals to the awful bogs. On, on, along the one hard track I journeyed, and the ghost-winds whistled round me as I flew. The mighty forest flung its shadow o’er me as I sped into its gloomy shade. But one wide track led onward, and at the end there shone a light so clear and pure that its rays poured like softest sunbeams into the darkness round.
End of Part II