‘A priest is bound to maintain utter silence on all matters revealed under the seal of confession, whether in the church or out of it, but you and I are in the position of two private individuals. You came to call on me like any other person; therefore, it lies in my discretionary power to keep what you have told me this evening to myself, or not.’
‘My God!’ cried Hindes, ‘I am lost!’
Then the nerve which he had ruined by the use of morphia entirely forsook him, and he fell on his knees and crawled to the feet of the man he had so sorely wronged, like an abject animal.
‘Mercy! mercy!’ he groaned, ‘don’t visit my crime upon my head, for the sake of my poor wife and children. I loved her.’
‘Silence, sir!’ thundered Frederick, ‘remember you are speaking of my wife! Mercy!’ he continued, after a pause, ‘what mercy did you have on me, when you cut my dream of love so cruelly short, and in so devilish a manner? What mercy had you on her, my sweet, innocent, loving Jenny, when your accursed hand hurled her over those awful rocks? My love! my darling!’ he continued, pacing the floor of his room in his agitation, ‘why was I not by your side at that fatal moment, that I might have made this fiend pay the penalty of his crime by sharing your fate? My wife—my wife—and he asks me to show mercy upon him!’
‘Mr Walcheren! I will do anything—anything—if you will only keep my secret now. It can do you no good to publish it, nor her either. Let me go free and I will pay any penalty you like. I am a rich man. If your Church demands it, I will pay half my fortune into her coffers, or, if you wish it, I will sign a paper, promising to leave England at once—to-morrow, if you insist upon it—and never show my face in the country again; I will perform any penance you may put upon me, only don’t make the matter public property after this length of time.’
He had forgotten, in his cowardly fear, that Walcheren had no witness against him, that his crime had been committed in secret, and that an English jury had acquitted him, and all men, from blame. His conscience had turned him into such a sorry poltroon that his memory had departed with his manliness. He grovelled before his opponent on the ground—he even attempted to kiss his feet, but Frederick Walcheren spurned him from him with his boot.
‘Don’t touch me, you brute!’ he exclaimed, using involuntarily the very words poor Jenny had blurted forth in her indignation, ‘your very lips are contamination! Once for all, I will not spare you. If you escape to the uttermost ends of the earth, I will pursue you there! You shall walk no longer among your fellow-men like a whited sepulchre. If I unfrock myself in order to obtain it, I will have my revenge!’
‘I have tried to make amends,’ groaned Henry Hindes, who was still upon his knees. ‘I have not used the money Mr Crampton left to my son. It is all there; I intend to endow a church or an hospital with it. But it was hers. It more justly belongs to you; you shall have it, every farthing, with double interest, if you will only consider your intention again and contemplate how little good you will do yourself and others by carrying it out.’
‘You would bribe me with money, you miserable cur!’ replied Frederick, witheringly—‘pay me for my wife’s murder—satisfy my craving for revenge by so many pounds, shillings and pence! But you will find I am not such an usurer as you imagine. I have not been brought up to trade, and if I had, I should not trade in my heart’s affections. Be silent! I will listen to no more from your accursed lips. You have said enough! Leave my presence; but don’t think to hide yourself from me. I will leave the priesthood to-morrow—I will leave the Church itself—I will resign my hopes of salvation, if need be, but you shall not go unpunished for this hideous crime!’