The Sin That Was His

by Frank L. Packard

A flush came suddenly to her cheeks, and she turned her head aside.

“I—I was not asleep,” she said hurriedly. “Go on, Father Aubert, I did not mean to interrupt you.”

Raymond did not speak for a moment. He was not looking at her now—he dared not trust his eyes to drink deeper of that flush that had come with the simple statement that she too had been awake. Valérie! Valérie! It was the silent voice of his soul calling her. And suddenly he seemed to be looking out from his prison land upon the present scene—upon Valérie and the good, young Father Aubert together, looking upon them both, as he had looked upon them together many times. And suddenly he hated that figure in priestly dress with a deadly hate—because Valérie had tossed upon her bed awake, and had not slept; and because, as though gifted with prophetic vision, he could see the shadow in Valérie's fresh, pure face change and deepen into misery immeasurable, and the young life, barely on its threshold, be robbed of youth with its joy and gladness, and with sorrow grow prematurely old.

“You went out, Father Aubert,” she prompted. “And then?”

The old sacristan would be back with the ladder very shortly, at almost any minute now—and he had to tell Valérie about old Mother Blondin and the cross before Narcisse returned. He looked up. He found himself speaking at first mechanically, and then low and earnestly, swayed strangely by his own words. And so, standing there in the aisle of the church, he told Valerie the story of the night, of the broken cross, of the broken life so near its end. And there was amazement, and wonder, and surprise in Valerie's face as she listened, and then a tender sympathy—and at the end, the dark eyes, as they lifted to his, were filled with tears.

“It is very wonderful,” she said almost to herself. “Old Mother Blondin—it could be only God who brought her here.”

Raymond did not answer. The old sacristan had entered the church, and was bringing the ladder down the aisle. It was the sacristan who spoke, catching sight of Valérie, as Raymond, taking one end of the ladder, raised it against the wall beside the cross.

“Tiens!” The old man lifted the coil of thin rope which he held, and with the back of his hand mopped away a bead of perspiration from his forehead. “You have seen then what has happened, mademoiselle! Father Aubert has made light of it; but what will Monsieur le Curé, your uncle, say when he hears of it! Yes, it is true—I am a misérable—I do not deserve to be sacristan any longer! It was consecrated by Monsignor the Bishop, that cross, when the church was consecrated, and——”

Raymond took the cord quietly from the old man's hand, and began to mount the ladder. He went up slowly—not that the ladder was insecure, but that his mind and thoughts were far removed from the mere mechanical task which he had set himself to perform. Valérie's words had set that turmoil at work in his soul again. She had not hesitated to say that it was God who had brought old Mother Blondin here. And he too believed that now. Peace he had not found, nor the way, but he believed that now. Therefore he must believe now that there was a God—yes, the night had brought him that. And if there was a God, was it God who had led him, as old Mother Blondin had been led, to fall upon his knees in that pew below there where Valérie now sat, and pray? Had he prayed for old Mother Blondin's sake alone? Was God partial then? Old Mother Blondin, he knew, even if her surrender were not yet complete, had found the way. He had not. He had found no way—to save that man who was to be hanged by the neck until he was dead—to save Valérie from shame and misery if she cared, if she still cared—to save himself! Old Mother Blondin alone had found the way. Was it because she was the lesser sinner of the two—because he had blasphemed God beyond all recall—because he still dared to blaspheme God—because he had stood again that morning at the altar and had officiated as God's holy priest—because he stood here now in God's house, an impostor, an intruder and a defiler! No way! And yet through him old Mother Blondin had found her God again! Was it irony—God's irony—God's answer, irrefutable, to his former denial of God's existence!

No way! Ten feet below him Valérie and the old sacristan talked and watched; the weather-beaten timbers of the great cross were within reach of his hands; there, inside the chancel rail, was the altar—all these things were real, were physically real. It did not seem as though it could be so. It seemed as though, instead, he were taking part in some horrible, and horribly vivid dream-life. Only there would be no awakening! There was no way—he would twist this cord about the iron hooks on the cross and the iron hook on the wall, and descend, and go through another day, and be the good, young Father Aubert, and toss through another night, and wait, clinging to the miserable hope, spurned even by his gambler's instinct, that “something” might happen—wait for the deciding of that appeal, and picture the doomed man in the death cell, and dream his dreams, and watch Valérie from his prison land, and know through the hours and minutes torment and merciless unrest. Yes, he believed there was a God. He believed that God had brought them both here, old Mother Blondin to cling to the foot of the cross, and himself to find her there—but to him there had come no peace—no way. His blasphemy, his desecration of God's altar and God's church had been made to serve God's ends—old Mother Blondin had found the way. But that purpose was accomplished now. How much longer, then, would God suffer this to continue? Not long! To-morrow, the next day, the day after, would come the answer to the appeal—and then he must choose. Choose! Choose what? What was there to choose where—his hands gripped hard on the rung of the ladder. Enough! Enough of this! It was terrible enough in the nights! There was no end to it! It would go on and on—the same ghoulish cycle over and over again. He would not let it master him now, for there would be no end to it! He was here to fix the cross. To fix God's cross, the consecrated cross—it was a fitting task for one who walked always with that symbol suspended from his neck! It was curious how that symbol had tangled up his hands the night his fingers had crept toward that white throat on the bed! Even the garb of priest that he wore God turned to account, and—no! He lifted his hand and swept it fiercely across his eyes. Enough! That was enough! It was only beginning somewhere else in the cycle that inevitably led around into all the rest again.