The clock struck half-past one. He turned back to his cell. The ghastly beams of the setting moon suffused it with the pallor of a death-scene. God in heaven! The death-scene was there—the crucifixion! The sight pierced him afresh with the sharpest sorrow, and taking the crucifix down, he fell upon his knees and covered it with his kisses and his tears. There was the wound in the side, there were the drops of blood and the thorns on the brow, and the divine face still serene and victorious in the last agony of self-renunciation. Self-renunciation!
"Lord, is it true that I cannot live to Thee alone? And Thou didst sacrifice Thyself to the utmost for me! Consider me, how I am made! Have mercy, have mercy! If I sin, be Thou my witness that I do not know it!—Thou, too, didst love her well enough to die for her!"
In that hour, when he touched the highest point that nature ever enabled him to attain, Father Palemon, looking into his conscience and into the divine face, took his final resolution. He was still kneeling in steadfast contemplation of the cross when the moon withdrew its last ray and over it there rushed a sudden chill and darkness. He was still immovable before it when, at the resounding clangor of the bell, all the spectral figures of his brethren started up from their couches like ghosts from their graves, and in a long, shadowy line wound noiselessly downward into the gloom of the chapel, to begin the service of matins and lauds.
V.
He did not return with them when at the close of day they wound upward again to their solemn sleep. He slipped unseen into the windings of a secret passage-way, and hastening to the reception-room of the abbey sent for the abbot.
It was a great bare room. A rough table and two plain chairs in the middle were the only furniture. Over the table there swung from the high ceiling a single low, lurid point of light, that failed to reach the shadows of the recesses. The few poor pictures of saints and martyrs on the walls were muffled in gloom. The air was dank and noisome, and the silence was that of a vault.
Standing half in light and half in darkness, Father Palemon awaited the coming of his august superior. It was an awful scene. His face grew whiter than his cowl, and he trembled till he was ready to sink to the floor. A few moments, and through the dim door-way there softly glided in the figure of the aged abbot, like a presence rather felt than seen. He advanced to the little zone of light, the iron keys clanking at his girdle, his delicate fingers interlaced across his breast, his gray eyes filled with a look of mild surprise and displeasure.
"You have disturbed me in my rest and meditations. The occasion must be extraordinary. Speak! Be brief!"
"The occasion is extraordinary. I shall be brief. Father Abbot, I made a great mistake in ever becoming a monk. Nature has not fitted me for such a life. I do not any longer believe that it is my duty to live it. I have disturbed your repose only to ask you to receive the renunciation of my priestly vows and to take back my cowl: I will never put it on again."
As he spoke he took off his cowl and laid it on the table between them, showing that he wore beneath the ordinary dress of a working-man.