The Sin That Was His

by Frank L. Packard

Well, he would go! He stepped softly out into the hall, closed his door behind him, groped his way in the darkness to the front door of the presbytère, opened it—and stood still for an instant, listening. Neither Valérie nor her mother, asleep upstairs, had been disturbed he was sure. If they had—well, they would assign no ulterior motive to his going out—it was only that Monsieur le Curé, poor man, did not sleep well!

He closed the door quietly, and went down the steps—and at the bottom paused again. He became suddenly conscious that there was a great quiet and a great serenity in the night—and a great beauty. There were stars, a myriad stars in a perfect sky; and the moonlight bathed the church green in a radiance that made of it a velvet carpet, marvellously wrought in shadows of many hues. There, along the road, a whitewashed cottage stood out distinctly, and still further along another, and yet another—like little fortresses whose tranquillity was impregnable. And the moonlight, and the lullaby of the lapping water on the shore, and the night sounds that were the chirping of the little grass-things, were like some benediction breathed softly upon the earth.

“To direct our feet into the way of peace”—Raymond murmured the words with a sudden overpowering sense of yearning and wistfulness sweeping upon him. And then, as suddenly, he was tense, alert, straining his eyes toward the front of the church. Was that a shadow there that moved, cast perhaps by the swaying branch of some tree? It was a very curious branch if that were so! The shadow seemed to have appeared suddenly from around the corner of the church and to be creeping toward the door. It was too far across the green to see distinctly, even with the moonlight as bright as it was, but it seemed as though he could see the church door open and close again—and now the shadow had disappeared.

Mechanically Raymond rubbed his eyes. It was strange, so very strange that it must surely be only a trick of the imagination. The moonlight was always deceptive and lent itself easily to hallucinations, and at that distance he certainly could not be sure. And besides, at this hour, after midnight, why should any one go stealing into the church? And yet he could have sworn he had seen the door open! And stare as he would now, the shadow that had crept along the low platform above the church steps was no longer visible.

He hesitated a moment. It was even an added incentive for him to go into the church, but suppose some one was there, and he should be seen? He smiled a little wanly—and stepped forward across the green. Well, what of it! Was he not the Curé of St. Mar-leau? It would be only another halo for the head of the good, young Father Aubert! It would require but a word of explanation from him, he could even tell the truth—and they would call him the devout, good, young Father Aubert! Only, instead of entering by one of the main doors, he would go in through the sacristy. He was not even likely to be seen himself in that way; and, if there was any one there, he should be able to discover who it was, and what he or she was doing there.

He passed on along the side of the church, his footsteps soundless on the sward, reached the door of the sacristy, opened it silently, and stepped inside. It was intensely dark here. Treading on tiptoe, he traversed the little room, and finally, after a moment's groping, his fingers closed on the knob of the door that opened on the interior of the church.

A sound broke the stillness. Yes, there was some one out there! Raymond cautiously pulled the door ajar. Came that sound again. It was very loud—and yet it was only the creak of a footstep that seemed to come from somewhere amongst the aisles. It echoed back from the high vaulted roof with a great noise. It seemed to give pause, to terrify with its own alarm whoever was out there, for now as he listened there was silence again.

Still cautiously and still a little wider, Raymond opened the door, and now he could see out into the body of the church—and for a moment, as though gazing upon some mystic scene, he stood there wrapt, immovable. Above the tops of the high, stained windows, it was as though a vast canopy of impenetrable blackness were spread from end to end of the edifice; and slanting from the edge of this canopy in a series of parallel rays the moonlight, coloured into curious solemn tints, filtered across from one wall to the other. And the aisles were like little dark alleyways leading away as into some immensity beyond. And here, looming up, a statue, the figure of some white-robed saint, drew, as it were, a holy light about it, and seemed to take on life and breathe into the stillness a sense of calm and pure and unchanging presence. And the black canopy and the little dark alleyways seemed to whisper of hidden things that kept ward over this abode of God. And there was no sound—and there was awe and solemnity in this silence. And on the altar, very near him, the Altar of God that he had come to seek, the single altar light burned like a tiny scintillating jewel in its setting of moon rays. And there, shadowy against the wall, just outside the chancel rail, was the great cross. There seemed something that spoke of the immutable in that. The first little wooden church above whose doors it had been reared was gone, and there was a church of stone now with a golden, metal cross upon its spire, but this great cross of wood was still here. It was a very precious relic to St. Marleau, and so it hung there on the wall of the new church between the two windows nearest the altar.

And then his eyes, travelling down the length of the cross, fixed upon its base—and the spell that had held him was gone. It was blacker there, very much blacker! There was a patch of blackness there that seemed to move and waver slightly—and it was neither shadow, nor yet the support built out to hold the base of the cross. Some one was crouching there. Well, what should he do? Remain in hiding here, or go out there as the Curé of St. Marleau and see who it was? Something urged him to go; caution bade him remain where he was. He knew a sudden resentment. He had put God to the test—and, instead of peace, he had found a prowler in the church!

Ah—what was that! That low, broken sound—like a sob! Yes, it came again—and the echoes whispered it back from everywhere. It was a woman. A woman was sobbing there at the foot of the cross. Who was it? Came a thought that stabbed with pain. Not Valérie! It could not be Valérie—kneeling there under a load that was beyond her strength! It could not be Valérie in anguish and grief greater than she could bear because—because she loved a man whom she believed to be a priest of God! No—not Valérie! But if it were!