He passed out into the hall. Cuthbert was standing alone, and Charles was gone.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE COUP DE GRACE.
In the long watches of the winter night, when one has awoke from some evil dream, and lies sleepless and terrified with the solemn pall of darkness around one—on one of those deadly, still dark nights, when the window only shows a murky patch of positive gloom in contrast with the nothingness of the walls, when the howling of a tempest round chimney and roof would be welcomed as a boisterous companion—in such still dead times only, lying as in the silence of the tomb, one realises that some day we shall lie in that bed and not think at all: that the time will come soon when we must die.
Our preachers remind us of this often enough, but we cannot realise it in a pew in broad daylight. You must wake in the middle of the night to do that, and face the thought like a man, that it will come, and come to ninety-nine in a hundred of us, not in a maddening clatter of musquetry as the day is won; or in carrying a line to a stranded ship, or in such like glorious times, when the soul is in mastery over the body, but in bed, by slow degrees. It is in darkness and silence only that we realise this; and then let us hope that we humbly remember that death has been conquered for us, and that in spite of our unworthiness we may defy him. And after that sometimes will come the thought, "Are there no evils worse even than death?"
I have made these few remarks (I have made very few in this story, for I want to suggest thought, not to supply it ready-made) because Charles Ravenshoe has said to me in his wild way, that he did not fear death, for he had died once already.
I did not say anything, but waited for him to go on.
"For what," he continued, "do you make out death even at the worst? A terror, then a pang, more or less severe; then a total severance of all ties on earth, an entire and permanent loss of everything one has loved. After that, remorse, and useless regret, and the horrible torture of missed opportunities without number thrust continually before one. The monotonous song of the fiends, 'Too late! too late!' I have suffered all these things! I have known what very few men have known, and lived—despair; but perhaps the most terrible agony for a time was the feeling of loss of identity—that I was not myself; that my whole existence from babyhood had been a lie. This at times, at times only, mind you, washed away from me the only spar to which I could cling—the feeling that I was a gentleman. When the deluge came, that was the only creed I had, and I was left alone as it were on the midnight ocean, out of sight of land, swimming with failing strength."
I have made Charles speak for himself. In this I know that I am right. Now we must go on with him through the gathering darkness without flinching; in terror, perhaps, but not in despair as yet.