‘Nothing? Are you laughing at my agony?’
‘God forbid! I am grieving for this fresh pain you are called upon to endure, more than I can say. But I repeat, you can do nothing. Have you forgotten the solemn vows you have taken not to reveal anything you may hear in the confessional? You would not have dreamt of coming to me with a story you might have heard concerning a stranger. Your hands are just as much tied when the revelation affects yourself!’
‘You mean that I can do nothing to set this matter right—that I am bound to let the murderer of my wife go free?’
‘Certainly, since he has confessed the deed to you in your sacred office as confessor! You are bound by your own oath to maintain an utter silence on the subject.’
‘And he, this brute, is to walk about the world, prosperous and esteemed—triumphing, perhaps, in his secret crimes—whilst my innocent darling lies unavenged in her grave? Oh! it is too, too cruel! I cannot believe it would be a duty!’
‘It is a duty, a duty which you could only overcome by breaking your most solemn word, by violating your sanctity as a priest, by disgracing your holy office and bringing discredit on the sacrament of confession. What are you thinking of Frederick? What would you have thought in the olden days if I, for example, had revealed to the world what you have told me in the confessional?’
‘Oh, that was different,’ exclaimed the young priest passionately. ‘My confessions—most people’s confessions—are of trivial, everyday faults. But this—this heinous murder, which cries aloud to God’s Throne for vengeance—is not the same thing. If murderers and such like criminals are to believe that, by coming to us and depositing their vile secrets in the confessional, they may obtain relief and absolution, the Church will be turned into a depository for crime—a sink hole of wickedness without any judgment to follow.’
‘Whatever you may think, Frederick, the fact remains that, as a priest, you cannot reveal this terrible secret, nor even breathe a hint that you have heard it. With me you are safe, but to no one else must you mention the subject. Go home, my dear brother, and pray to forget it, even to forgive it.’
‘Never!’ cried the young man, emphatically. ‘I should lie if I said I should ever do either one or the other. Father Tasker, I have had many doubts, as you know, since entering the Church, whether I have not made a grave mistake, but I have none at the present moment. I see that I have put myself in a wrong position. Had I had the least idea of what I have heard to-day—had I imagined, however vaguely, that my precious wife had come unfairly by the death which I always believed to be due to an accident, nothing would have induced me to bind myself by any vows but those which should bring her murderer to justice. And now that the bitter truth has been accidentally revealed to me—that I have met the villain face to face—you tell me I must be silent, that I must brood over my deep wrongs for a lifetime, praying the while, perhaps, for the welfare of the brute who goes scot-free. But I cannot do it—I cannot! I wear the vestments of a priest, but I am a man all the same, a man who loves and has lost, who knows his enemy and thirsts for revenge! And you bid me have patience and keep silence. It is impossible! unnatural! You lay a task on me that I am unable to fulfil.’
‘You shock me,’ said the old priest. ‘You are indeed right, with such feelings, to say you should never have accepted the office you fill. What are you saying? You cannot, and you will not, and it is unnatural that you should. You forget you are no longer a free agent, but must do as the Church commands you—not as you think, or feel.’