In heaven he might, maybe, hear the songs of the just made perfect; but, sinful man that he was, surely his heart would still ache through all their celestial music for what he had never heard,—the sound of his name on her lips with the accent of earthly love in it! Ah, and he had never once so much as kissed her!
His life was worth more than that crime-stained idiot's. If he betrayed him for Margaret's sake! For Margaret's sake! the words shamed him.
If he sinned for her, then he would give the lie to all his life. He would prove his enemy right; he would surely show that it had been for selfish desire, not for the saving of her fair soul, that he had taken her. For Margaret's sake! how durst the devil tempt him with her name?
"Good Lord, deliver me!" he cried. But it seemed to him that the very bitterness of death was upon him. To let her go! before ever he had won her! never more to have part or lot in anything that might befall her!
He had trusted in his God, and his God had mocked him; filling his heart with this unsatisfied love. Other men got their desires and——
"Preacher, shall you preach to-day in the yard?" said Jack.
"No; I've no call to preach to-day. I can't," said Barnabas.
Perhaps he had never had a call; perhaps everything was a mistake from beginning to end. If so, then indeed he had been a fool; he might, at least, have eaten and drunk, for to-morrow——
"Then you won't leave me," said Jack. "I say, I can't feel anything below my waist, ain't that queer? The governor did me a good turn; for I hadn't much chance of getting clear off, anyhow, even if there 'adn't been them cursed gratings; and now I've cheated them." And he laughed weakly. "I'd like you to stick close by me at the end; but don't preach too much, 'cos I mean to die game. I meant to do that anyhow. If it 'adn't been for you, I'd have finished myself; but I owed you one. How cold it is!"
Barnabas slipped off his jersey to wrap round the man. He knew well enough that no amount of warm clothing would affect that creeping cold; but, at least, it was a way of expressing human sympathy.