He was standing still, pondering over this long forgotten and very dreary past, and now as he uttered these words he lifted up his head and saw that he had paused under a wooden crucifix, one which he remembered distinctly. The image of the Lord hanging upon it was worn and weather-beaten, the wood was bleached and pallid as if it had stood there long centuries; yet still the bowed head, with its crown of thorns, possessed a pathetic sadness, as if this man also, Christ Jesus the Lord, had been pierced through with many sorrows—yes, with one vast sorrow unlike any other sorrow. He felt, as he had never felt before, that this grief beyond compare, this crucifixion of the soul as well as of the body, was his own doing. They were his sins which the Lord had borne in his own body on the tree; and what he planned to do would crucify the Son of God afresh.
"God be merciful to me, a sinner!" he cried.
It was late before he returned to the hotel; but his mind was fully made up now. If he had never been a Christian before, he would be so from this hour, and whatever it might cost him, there should be no more hypocrisy, no more playing of a part, in his life. A bitter harvest was before him, but he would reap it unflinchingly to its last grain. The sting of his sin was that he could not save others from reaping it with him. And how large was the number of reapers! Directly or indirectly how many persons must suffer from this early sin of his!
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CHIARA'S HUT.
Phyllis was gone to bed, but Dorothy was waiting for Sidney in the bare and comfortless dining room of the hotel. She looked up wistfully as he entered, for all day her thoughts had been anxious and troubled by the mystery which had so suddenly surrounded her; and seeing his pale and haggard face she ran to meet him, and put her arms round his neck, kissing him fondly as a daughter might have done. He kept her hand in his as he sank down weariedly into the chair next to him, and he bowed his head upon the small, fond fingers, and she felt his tears falling on them. Presently he looked up at her.
"Dorothy," he said, "you will never forsake me!"
"Never!" she exclaimed vehemently, "never! not if all the world forsook you."
"Even if you heard I was a base scoundrel, a selfish villain?" he asked.
"Oh, but you are not that!" she answered, kissing him again; "there would be some mistake. But if it was true, I should never forsake you; you would want me all the more."