My heart was so full of Giles Vernon that I burst out with the story. It seemed quite new to him; and he listened to it with breathless attention, occasionally ejaculating his horror at the conduct of Sir Thomas Vernon and of Lady Arabella Stormont. It gave me a savage pleasure to tell him every dreadful particular concerning Arabella; and by the look of consciousness which came into his expressive face, and by the way in which he avoided my eye, I saw that he knew he was a factor in the case against his will. At last, quite transported by my rage against these two, I cried out,—
“And it is for the purpose of securing the estate to you that Arabella Stormont thus swore away the life of Giles Vernon; but God will confound her and Sir Thomas Vernon yet!”
“Truly,” said he, in a thrilling voice, “God will confound all the wicked. He will bring this horrid scheme to naught in every way; for know you, if Lady Arabella Stormont were to throw herself on her knees before me—”
He stopped, and colored violently; he had not meant to admit what the whole world knew,—that Arabella Stormont had adored him for seven years past. He hurriedly changed the subject, saying,—
“Perhaps you do not know that I am no longer in the army.”
I said I did not.
“Although I have recovered the use of my limbs, and look to be in health, I am not fit for service; and I was retired on half-pay only a few days ago. My life is not likely to be long; but released as I am, by God’s hand, from the profession of arms, I shall devote the remnant of my life to the service of the Lord God Almighty. His message came to me years ago, but I was deaf to it. I was in love with the world, and possessed by the flesh and the devil. I committed murders under the name of war. I dishonored my Maker by my dissipations. I spent in gambling and vice the money wrung from the poor that were bond-slaves to labor and poverty. I blasphemed, and yet I was not counted evil by the world.”
I listened and wondered to myself, should this be true, where stood we all?
Overton’s face had flushed, his eyes were full of rapture; he seemed to dwell in the glory of the Lord.
“But now I am free from the body of that death, and subject only to the yoke of the Nazarene,—the Jesus who labored with His hands to show that work was honorable; the Carpenter who called about Him those as poor as Himself, and preached to them the love of God and one’s neighbor; who received the Magdalen as a sister and the leper as a brother.”