The Sin That Was His

by Frank L. Packard

And suddenly he pushed the man violently and without heed from him, until the man fell forward on the cot, and Raymond, lurching upward himself, stood rocking upon his feet. It was clear, distinct now, that face looking in through those iron bars. It was Valerie's face—Valerie's—Valerie's face. It was beautiful as he had never seen it beautiful before. The sweet lips were parted in a smile of infinite tenderness and pity, and the dark eyes looked out through a mist of compassion, not upon him, but upon the figure behind him on the prison cot. He reached out his arms. His lips moved silently—Valérie! And then she seemed to turn her head and look at him, and her eyes swam deeper in their tears, and there was a wondrous light of love in her face, and with the love a condemnation that was one of sorrow and of bitter pain. She seemed to speak; he seemed to hear her voice: “That life is not yours to give. I have sinned, my lover, in loving you. Is my sin to be beyond all forgiveness because out of my love has been born the guilt of murder?”

The voice was gone. The face had faded out of that shaft of sunlight—only the iron bars were there now. Raymond's outstretched arms fell to his side—and then he turned, and dropped upon his knees beside the cot, and hid his face in his hands.

Murder! Yes, it was murder—murder that desecrated, that vilified, that made a wanton thing of that pure love, that brave and sinless love, that Valerie had given him. And he would have linked the vilest and the blackest crime, hideous the more in the Judas betrayal with which he would have accomplished it, with Valerie—with Valerie's love! His hands, locked about his face, trembled. He was weak and nerveless in a Titanic revulsion of soul and mind and body. And horror was upon him, a horror of himself—and yet, too, a strange and numbed relief. It was not he, it was not he as he knew himself, who had meant to do this thing—it was not Raymond Chapelle who had thought and argued that this was the way. See! His soul recoiled, blasted, shrivelled now from before it! It was because his brain had been tormented, not to the verge of madness, but had been flung across that border-line for a space into the gibbering realms beyond where reason tottered and was lost.

He was conscious that the man was sitting upright on the edge of the cot, conscious that the man's hands were plucking pitifully at the sleeve of his soutane, conscious that the man was pleading again hysterically: “Father, you will tell them that you know I am innocent. They will believe you, father—they will believe you. They say I did it, father, but I cannot remember, or—or, perhaps, I could make them believe me, too. You will not let me die, father—because—because I cannot remember. You will save me, father”—the man's voice was rising, passing beyond control—“Father François Aubert, for the pity of Christ's love, tell me that you will not let me die—tell me——”

And then Raymond raised his head. His face was strangely composed.

“Hush, my son”—he scarcely recognised his own voice—it was quiet, low, gentle, like one soothing a child. “Hush, my son, you will not die.”

“Father! Father Aubert!”—the man was lurching forward toward him; the white, hollow face was close to his; the burning deep-sunk eyes with a terrible hunger in them looked into his. “I will not die! I will not die! You said that, father? You said that?”

“Hush!” Raymond's lips were dry, he moistened them with his tongue. “Calm yourself now, my son—you need no longer have any fear.”

A sob broke from the man's lips. His hands covered his face; he began to rock slowly back and forth upon the cot. He crooned to himself:

“I will not die—I am to live—I will not die—I am to live....”