‘The Church may unfrock me, but she cannot unmake me a man, with all a man’s feelings and desires. My love I buried in the grave with my darling, cheerfully, for the Church’s sake. All my earthly amusements and luxuries I have been willing to give up in the same way. Life has nothing much left in it for me now, and I am desirous to dedicate the rest of it, if needful, to the good of my brethren. But this is something quite different. This is a duty, in my own estimation—the blood of my dearest possession crying out to me for vengeance from the ground. I say, her murderer shall not live to murder other victims, perhaps in the same cold-blooded, heartless manner! God’s justice and the world’s laws demand it. It would be a sacrilege to let him go free!’
‘And I repeat, Frederick, that if the man had confessed to slaying the Christ Himself, in the confessional, you could not, as a priest, have betrayed him. If he comes to you again, you can counsel him to make the only reparation in his power, by confessing his sin to the world, and bearing the penalty, but you can go no further.’
‘As if a mean-spirited cur like that, who would stoop to wage war against a helpless girl, would be brave enough to swing for it!’ cried Frederick, contemptuously. ‘Not he! When I told him I knew his name, he tried to get out of what he had said, by pretending he had confessed a made-up story for a bet, but, when he saw my face, his told a different tale. What man, born of woman, could remain dumb under such circumstances? It shames his manhood to think of it. There is not a creature in this vast city that, knowing what I know, would not deliver the criminal up to justice.’
‘Perhaps so. To conceal a crime under ordinary circumstances is to be a partner in its guilt. Had this wretched man told you of his sin anywhere else than where he did—had you been with him in the open street, or in your private rooms, you would be justified in refusing to keep his secret for him, even though you are a priest. But he came to you, believing that he was safe in speaking openly to a confessor; therefore, to betray his confidence would be to perjure yourself, and without effecting your object. You could not take the secrets of the confessional into an open court of law as witness of a man’s guilt. Who would accept your testimony? How easy it would be for the murderer to turn round, as you say he attempted to do, and deny that it was anything but a jest. Where would you be then? Disgraced, but unavenged.’
‘You are right, father,’ said Frederick, with a deep sigh, as he rose to leave, ‘and I have been an impetuous idiot. Thanks for all your kindness and patience with me. I fear I try it sorely at times. Good-night!’
He went back to his residence, but the father’s last words rung in his ears meanwhile. ‘Had this man told you of his guilt anywhere else.’ Would it be possible to induce Hindes to repeat what he had said in the confessional elsewhere? Would he be too astute, too cunning, too incredulous of the safety of such a thing, to repeat his story? Or might he, if Frederick could only conceal his hatred of him sufficiently well, be cajoled into believing that ‘once a priest was always a priest,’ and that the oath of silence was as obligatory out of the confessional as in? The young man shuddered as he thought of encountering Hindes again, yet, for Jenny’s sake—Jenny, who had said, poor child, almost prophetically, how she hated and mistrusted this man—he could manage, he thought, to hide his aversion and loathing, if it would serve the purpose of causing him to betray himself, with confidence, under conditions when he could take advantage of it to deliver him over to justice.
‘Oh, what feelings are these?’ cried Frederick, in his inmost soul. ‘Why did I ever become a priest? I had much better have enlisted in the army. I am not fitted for my position. I told them all so, but they would drive me into it. How can I go on offering the Mass, and attending all the services of the Church, with these burning desires for revenge in my heart? In another fashion I am as bad as this brute Hindes. He goes about the world as a whited sepulchre, and so do I. I wonder if I shall ever have the courage to break off my fetters. It would be one bold stroke and I should be free again. People would say, “How shocking. Fancy, he was a Catholic priest!” and poor dear Father Tasker and my cousin Philip would declare I was lost for evermore; but would their saying so, or thinking so, make it a fact? Which is better, that I should give up an office for which I am not only unfit, but in which I am a living lie, or go on with it, dissatisfied with myself and all my surroundings? After all, God, who knows my thoughts and my intentions, is the only Person Whose opinion I should fear, and I know that He hates hypocrisy. One thing I am sure of, that I cannot live a life of inactivity whilst my angel’s death is unavenged, and her murderer goes at large. The prayers would blister my tongue. I am unfit for any of my sacred duties whilst such thoughts fill my mind. I wish—I wish, from my inmost soul, that I was a better man, but I am very earthly yet. Every thought proves it. And yet, oh, my God! I shall not serve Thee worse in the world than here. Thou knowest, Who knowest all things, that I shall not return to the world I left. That has fled with all its pleasures, but this life cramps me. I am not myself. I have made a mistake. Show me how to remedy it.’
These were the thoughts that occupied the mind of Frederick Walcheren, and he was not a hypocrite in giving vent to them. He had been a very wild and self-seeking man before he knew Jenny Crampton, thinking only of the gratification of his senses, and caring nothing for the things of the other world. But the Catholic Church makes religion so much more realistic than any other. She depicts the saints and angels as being so much nearer to us in an earthly sense—walking by our sides as we journey through life, and taking an interest in all our troubles and pleasures (as, indeed, all the souls departed do), that her votaries, especially those who have been reared in her faith, find it most difficult to shake off her influence, or to forget her precepts. It is said that a Protestant may be converted to Catholicism, or Mahommedanism, or Spiritualism, or any other ‘ism’; but a Catholic, if he once rejects the faith of his fathers, becomes nothing but a total disbeliever. He either believes all or nothing. This may or may not be true, but the exception proves the rule. At all events, though his wife’s death had not fitted Frederick Walcheren to be a priest, it had made him think very deeply, and the lessons he had learned in his youth had returned with twofold force upon his mind, and made him view his past life in a light which would prevent his ever returning to it. He viewed his past career now as it really had been—the outcome of his selfish desires—and he mourned over its effects sincerely.
Amongst his other sins, the one he had committed against Rhoda Berry haunted him. The other women he had trifled with had either been very well able to take care of themselves, or they had been more sinning than sinned against. Rhoda Berry, of them all, had used only the weapon of her own love against him, had suffered the most in consequence, and had complained the least. It was strange that he—a priest—should find his thoughts turning most to her—a simple, uneducated girl—in this dilemma. But he saw plainly that he must expect no help from his fellow-clergy. They had relinquished the world, with all things pertaining thereto, and would only advise him to pray and be patient, and regard his present state of miserable uncertainty as a trial sent from Heaven out of loving-kindness, and his thirsting to avenge the cruel murder of his wife as a sore temptation from the Enemy of Mankind, which it was his solemn duty to trample under foot. And then this inability to disclose anything heard under the seal of confession! If that were true, Frederick felt he could not lend himself to be the depositary of state secrets, the keeping of which might be, perhaps, a wrong to his sovereign, his country and the people at large.
So he sat down and wrote a note to Rhoda Berry, in which he called her his dear friend, and said that, if she were likely to be visiting London again, he would much like to see her for a few minutes and receive her in the common parlour of the priests’ house, or call upon her at any place she might prefer. Rhoda showed this letter to her mother, and her mother, as usual, went to the cards for advice. The oracle said, decidedly, ‘Yes.’ Rhoda was to visit town for the express purpose of seeing her late lover, and the journey would be productive of good for both of them.