The hatred of years had found expression at last. The serpent that had lain in my heart, writhing and turning, and growing for years, had at last lifted its head, the latent devil had asserted itself, and I was a murderer.
A murderer!
The ghastly, terrible truth pressed itself upon me more and more. I was alone on the weather-beaten cliff, around me all was still; beneath me was the ever sobbing sea telling me of what I had done.
A murderer?
Oh! The terror of that thought. Even now, after long years, I trembled at what I then realised. I, Roger Trewinion, trained by a godly father, surrounded during my early life with every good influence, was a murderer. In my madness I had arisen like Cain and taken away my brother's life; in my hatred I had wrought desolation.
Alone! alone; with only the mocking sea to speak to me from without; while within I felt the fires of hell.
I saw, as in a lightning flash, the events of the past twenty years. I saw myself and Wilfred playing, rollicking on the cliffs, I saw us rushing home from school, and nutting among the woods. Again we were together in the waving cornfields, or swimming in the shining seas. We were reared in the same home, and had through our childhood slept in the same room. We both bore the same name, and the same blood ran in our veins.
And I remembered more than that. Thousands of incidents concerning the happy days of childhood flashed through my memory. Then we had few cares and many joys. I saw us sitting in the old family pew in church, and the lines of the old hymns we had sung came back to me, hymns about the love of God and the Cross of Christ.
And I had murdered him! Never, in my wildest moments, did I dream that my hatred of Wilfred would ever take outward form in actual killing. I did not mean to kill him when we stood together, and held him in my arms. But he fell from me—fell from that awful height, down, down, among the cruel jagged rocks, and would be dashed to pieces, while the mocking waves would sweep over him.
Now, where was the purpose of my hate, my revenge? They had not won back the lost years of my life, they had not given Ruth back to me. My evil deed had only made the evil more evil; had poisoned my own soul with a poison more deadly. What right had I to visit vengeance upon my brother's wrong-doing? Was I perfect? Had not hatred mastered my life for years? Had I not allowed my lower nature to conquer my higher? Yet I had dared to avenge my wrong. I had dared to take the work of God into my own hands. "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," said the Lord.