CHAPTER XXXII. JO PORTUGAIS TELLS A STORY
Jo Portugais had fastened down a secret with clasps heavier than iron, and had long stood guard over it. But life is a wheel, and natures move in circles, passing the same points again and again, the points being distant or near to the sense as the courses of life have influenced the nature. Confession was an old principle, a light in the way, a rest-house for Jo and all his race, by inheritance, by disposition, and by practice. Again and again Jo had come round to the rest-house since one direful day, but had not, found his way therein. There were passwords to give at the door, there was the tale of the journey to tell to the door-keeper. And this tale he had not been ready to tell. But the man who knew of the terrible thing he had done, who had saved him from the consequences of that terrible thing, was in sore trouble, and this broke down the gloomy guard he had kept over his dread secret. He fought the matter out with himself, and, the battle ended, he touched the door-keeper on the arm, beckoned him to a lonely place in the trees, and knelt down before him.
“What is it you seek?” asked the door-keeper, whose face was set and forbidding.
“To find peace,” answered the man; yet he was thinking more of another’s peril than of his own soul. “What have I to do with the peace of your soul? Yonder is your shepherd and keeper,” said the doorkeeper, pointing to where two men walked arm in arm under the trees.
“Shall the sinner not choose the keeper of his sins?” said the man huskily.
“Who has been the keeper all these years? Who has given you peace?”
“I have had no keeper; I have had no peace these many years.”
“How many years?” The Abbe’s voice was low and even, and showed no feeling, but his eyes were keenly inquiring and intent.
“Seven years.”
“Is the sin that held you back from the comfort of the Church a great one?”