“Forgive me, but it is my crime I would speak of now. I choose this moment that another should not suffer for what he did not do.”
The priest thought of the man they had left in the little house, and the crime with which he was charged, and wondered what the sinner before him was going to say.
“Tell your story, my son, and God give your tongue the very spirit of truth, that nothing be forgotten and nothing excused.”
There was a fleeting pause, in which the colour left the priest’s face, and, as he opened the door of his mind—of the Church, secret and inviolate—he had a pain at his heart; for beneath his arrogant churchmanship there was a fanatical spirituality of a mediaeval kind. His sense of responsibility was painful and intense. The same pain possessed him always, were the sin that of a child or a Borgia.
As he listened to the broken tale, the forest around was vocal, the chipmunks scampered from tree to tree, the woodpecker’s tap-tap, tap-tap, went on over their heads, the leaves rustled and gave forth their divine sweetness, as though man and nature were at peace, and there were no storms in sky above or soul beneath, or in the waters of life that are deeper than “the waters under the earth.”
It was only a short time, but to the door-keeper and the wayfarer it seemed hours, for the human soul travels far and hard and long in moments of pain and revelation. The priest in his anxiety suffered as much as the man who did the wicked thing. When the man had finished, the priest said:
“Is this all?”
“It is the great sin of my life.” He shuddered, and continued: “I have no love of life; I have no fear of death; but there is the man who saved me years ago, who got me freedom. He has had great sorrow and trouble, and I would live for his sake—because he has no friend.”
“Who is the man?”
The other pointed to where the little house was hidden among the trees. The priest almost gasped his amazement, but waited.