His lips were drawn together until they were bloodless. In retrospect his life passed swiftly, unbidden before him—and strewn on every hand was wreckage. And here was the final, crowning act of all—the coward's act—the coward afraid at the end to face the ruin he had, disdainful, callous, contemptuous then of consequence, so consistently wrought since boyhood! If he got away and wrote a letter it would save the man's life, it was true; but it was also true that he ran because he was cornered and at the end of his resources, and because what he might write would, in any case, be instantly discovered if he did not run—and to plead his own innocence in that letter, in the face of glaring proof to the contrary, in the face of the evidence he had so carefully budded against another, smacked only of the grovelling whine of the condemned wretch afraid. None would believe him. None! It was paltry, the police were inured to that; all criminals were eager to protest their innocence, and pule out their tale of extenuating circumstances. None would believe him. Valérie would not believe.
Folds of his cheeks were gripped and crushed in his hands until the finger nails bit into the flesh. He was innocent. He had not murdered that scarred-faced drunken hound—only Valérie would neither believe nor know; and in Valérie's eyes he would stand a loathsome thing, and in her soul would be a horror, and a misery, and a shame that was measured only by the greatness and the depth of the love she had given him, for in that greatness and that depth lay, too, the greatness and the depth of that love's dishonour and that love's abasement. But if—but if——
For a moment he did not stir or move, his eyes seeing nothing, fixed before him—and then steadily his head came up and poised far back on the broad, square shoulders, and the tight lips parted in a strange and sudden smile. If he drove to the station and met Monsignor the Bishop, and drove Monsignor the Bishop back to St. Marleau—then she would believe. No one else could or would believe him, the proof was irrefutable against him, they would convict him, and the sentence would be death; but she in her splendid love would believe him, and know that she had loved—a man. There had been three ways, but one had gone that afternoon; and then there had been two ways, but there was only one now, the man's way, for the other was the coward's way. And, taking this, he could lift his head and stand before them all, for in Valérie's face and in Valérie's eyes there would not be—-what was worse than death. To save Valérie from what he could—not from sorrow, not from grief, that he could not do—but that she might know that her love had been given where it was held a sacred, a priceless and a hallowed thing, and was not outraged and was not degraded because it had been given to him! To save Valerie from what he could—to save himself in his own eyes from the self-abasing knowledge that through a craven fear he had bartered away his manhood and his self-respect, that through fear he ran, and that through fear he hid, and that through fear, though he was innocent, he dared not stand—a man!
He stopped the horse, and stepped down to the ground; and, searching for a match, found one, and lighted the lantern where it hung upon the dash-board. He was calm now, not with that calmness desperately imposed by will and nerve, but with a calmness that was like to—peace. And, standing there, the lantern light fell upon him, and gleamed upon the crucifix upon his breast. And he lifted the crucifix, and, wondering, held it in his hand, and looked at it. It was here in these woods and on this road that he had first hung it about his neck in insolent and bald denial of the Figure that it bore. It was very strange! He had meant it then to save his life; and now—he let it slip gently from his fingers, and climbed back into the buckboard—and now it seemed, as though strengthening him in the way he saw at last, in the way he was to take, as though indeed it were the way itself, came radiating from it, like a benediction, a calm and holy—peace.
And there was no more any turmoil.
And he picked up the reins and drove on along the road.
CHAPTER XXIII—MONSIGNOR THE BISHOP
THE train had come and gone, as Raymond reached the station platform. He had meant it so. He had meant to avoid the lights from the car windows that would have illuminated the otherwise dark platform; to avoid, if possible, a disclosure in Labbée's, the station agent's, presence. Afterwards, Labbée would know, as all would know—but not now. It was not easy to tell; the words perhaps would not come readily even when alone with Monsignor the Bishop, as they drove back together to the village.