‘Perhaps I have had more cause lately to bring my bad qualities into play. I have had a great shock, the last week, Rhoda! I have discovered that my dear wife did not meet her death by an accident, but was foully murdered.’
The girl sprung from her seat with a genuine exclamation of horror.
The dead woman had been more than her rival. She had actually ousted her from her lover’s affections, and she had had many bitter and envious thoughts about them both. But, when she heard that she had been murdered, all her resentment vanished in a flood of pity so vast, that she felt, at that moment, as if she would have laid down her own life to bring her back again. And how she pitied him too—her poor lover, whose infidelity to herself had met with so terrible an ending.
‘Oh! my poor, poor boy!’ she cried, forgetful of his priesthood and everything, except that once he had been her own; ‘how sorry I am for you. How did you hear it? Who did the awful deed? What reason could anyone have had to injure you so fearfully?’
And then the tender-hearted girl sat down in her chair again and burst into tears—partly for poor dead Jenny, and partly for herself.
‘I knew you would feel for me,’ replied Frederick. ‘You have been a good friend to me all along. I cannot answer all your questions. If I could, I should not have need of your advice. But listen to me, and I will tell you the whole story.’
He drew a chair opposite to her on the other side of the table, and leaned his arms across it.
‘You have heard of the confessional, Rhoda, where Catholics tell their sins to a priest, and, when truly penitent, receive absolution. Last Saturday week, Father Henniker, one of our priests, was ill, and I was ordered to take his place in the confessional, and as the people who confess cannot see the face of the confessor, no one knew but that Father Henniker was in his usual place. Do you understand?’
‘Perfectly!’
‘Whilst I was engaged thus, a man entered the confessional, and, to my horror and amazement, told me the whole history of my darling wife’s—You don’t mind my calling her that before you, do you, Rhoda?’