The Sin That Was His

by Frank L. Packard

And at the church door, in surplice and stole, the altar boy beside him, as the cortège approached, stood Raymond Chapelle—the good, young Father Aubert.

He was very pale; the dark eyes were sunk deep in their sockets from three sleepless nights, and from the torment of constant suspense, where each moment in the countless hours had been pregnant with the threat of discovery, where each second had swung like some horrible pendulum hesitating between safety—and the gallows. He could not escape this sacrilege that he was about to commit. There was no escape from it. They had thought it strange, perhaps, that he had not said mass on those two mornings that were gone. It was customary; but he knew, too, that it was not absolutely obligatory—and so, through one excuse and another, he had evaded it. And even if it had been obligatory, he would still have had to find some way out, to have taken the law temporarily, as it were, into his own hands—for he would not have dared to celebrate the mass. Dared? Because of the sacrilege, the meddling with sacred things? Ah, no! What was his creed—that he feared neither God nor devil, nor man nor beast! What was that toast he had drunk that night in Ton-Nugget Camp—he, and Three-Ace Artie, and Arthur Leroy, and Raymond Chapelle! No; it was not that he feared—it was this sharp-eyed altar boy, this lad of twelve, who at the mass would be always at his elbow. But he was no longer afraid of the boy, for now he was ready. He had realised that he could not escape performing some of the offices of a priest, no matter what happened to that cursed fool lying over yonder there in the presbytère upon the bed, who seemed to get better rather than worse, and so—he had overheard Madame Lafleur confide it to the doctor—he had been of a devoutness rarely seen. Through the nights and through the days, spurred on by a sharper, sterner prod than his father's gold in the old school days had been, he had poured and studied over the ritual and the theological books that he had found in the priest's trunk, until now, committing to memory like a parrot, he was thoroughly master of anything that might arise—especially this burial of Théophile Blondin which he had foreseen was not likely to be avoided, in spite of the attitude of that miserable old hag, the mother.

Raymond's head was slightly bowed, his eyes lowered—but his eyes, nevertheless, were allowing nothing to escape them. They were extremely clumsy, and infernally slow out there in bringing the casket into the church! He would see to it that things moved with more despatch presently! There was another reason why he had not dared to act as a priest in the church before—that man over there in the presbytère upon the bed. He had, on that first morning, not dared to leave the other, and it had been the same yesterday morning. True, to avert suspicion, he had gone out sometimes, but never far, never out of call of the presbytère—which was a very different matter from being caught in the midst of a service where his hands would have been tied and he could not have instantly returned. It was strange, very strange about the wounded priest, who, instead of dying, appeared to be stronger, though he lay in a sort of comatose condition—and now the doctor even held out hopes of the man's recovery! Suppose—suppose the priest should regain consciousness now, at this moment, while he was in the act of conducting the funeral, in the other's stead, over the body of the man for whose murder, in his, Raymond's, stead, the other was held guilty! He was juggling with ghastly dice! But he could not have escaped this—there was no way to avoid this funeral of the son of that old hag who had run screaming, “murder—murder—murder,” into the storm that night.

He raised his head. It was the gambler now, steel-nerved, accepting the chances against him, to all outward appearances impassive, who stood there in the garb of priest. He was cool, possessed, sure of himself, cynical of all things holy, disdainful of all things spiritual, contemptuous of these villagers around him that he fooled—as he would have been contemptuous of himself to have hesitated at the plunge, desperate though it was, that was his one and only chance for liberty and life.

Ha! At last—eh? They had brought Théophile Blondin to the door!

And then Raymond's voice, rich, full-toned, stilled that queer, subdued, composite sound of breathings, of the rustle of garments, of slight, involuntary movements—of St. Marleau crowded in the pews in strained, tense waiting.

“'Si iniquitates observaveris, Domine; Domine quis sustinebit?—If Thou, O Lord, wilt mark iniquities; Lord, who shall abide it?”

It was curious that the service should begin like that, curious that he had not before found any meaning or significance in the words. He had learned them like a parrot. “If Thou, O Lord, wilt mark iniquities....” He bowed his head to hide the tightening of his lips. Bah, what was this! Some inner consciousness inanely attempting to suggest that there was not only significance in the words, but that the significance was personal, that the very words from his lips, performing the office of priest, desecrating God's holy place, was iniquity, black, blasphemous and abhorrent in God's sight—if there were a God!

Ah, that was it—if there were a God! He was reciting now the De Profundis in a purely mechanical way. “Out of the depths....”

If there were a God—yes, that was it! He had never believed there was, had he? He did not believe it now—but he would make one concession. What he was doing was not in intent blasphemous, neither was it to mock—it was to save his life. He was a man with a halter strangling around his neck. And if there was a God, who then had brought all this about? Who then was responsible, and who then should accept the consequences? Not he! He had not sought from choice to play the part of priest! He had not sought the life of this dead man in the coffin there in front of him! He had not sought to—yes, curse it, it was the word to use—kill the drunken, besotted, worthless fool!