"Surely, my son."
CHAPTER XXI.
It was late on the evening of the fifth day after the letter had been sent to Ida Raughton, that a mule, bearing upon its back Lord Penlyn and escorted by a guide, stopped at the house of the Curé of Sastratz; The young man had travelled from London as fast as the expresses could carry him, and had come straight to the village lying at the entrance of the Schwarzweiss Pass, to find that from there he could only continue his journey on foot or by mule. He chose the latter as the swiftest and easiest course--for he was very tired and worn with travelling--and at last he arrived at his destination.
When the first feeling of horror had been upon him on reading the letter Smerdon had written, acknowledging that he was the murderer, he had told Ida Raughton that he would not go to see him even on his death-bed; that his revulsion of feeling would be such that he should be only able to curse him for his crime. But she, with that gentleness of heart that never failed her, pleaded so with him to have pity on the man who, however deep his sin, had sinned alone for him, that she induced him to go.
"Remember," she said, "that even though he has done this awful deed, he did it for your sake; it was not done to benefit himself. Bad and wicked as it was, at least that can be pleaded for him."
"Yes," her lover answered, "I see his reason now. He thought that Walter had come between my happiness and me for ever, and in a moment of pity for me he did the deed. How little he knew me, if he thought I wished him dead!"
But even as he spoke he remembered that he had once cursed his brother, and had used the very words "I wish he were dead!" If it was upon this hasty expression that Smerdon had acted, then he, too, was a murderer.
He left Belmont an hour after the letter had arrived, and so, travelling as above described, stood outside Father Neümann's house on the night of the fifth day. The priest answered the door himself, and as he did so he put his finger upon his lip. "Are you the friend from England that is expected?" he asked.
"Yes," Penlyn said, speaking low in answer to the sign for silence. "He still lives?"
"He lives; but his hours draw to a close. Had you not come now you would not have found him alive."