The Bishop’s eyes fell upon the prisoner for an instant. Then he looked full into the eyes of his questioner and he answered:
“Nothing.”
“That will do. Thank you, Bishop,” said Dardis in a low, broken voice.
Jeffrey Whiting fell back in his chair. The light of confidence died slowly, reluctantly out of his eyes. The Bishop had spoken. The Bishop had lied! He knew! And he had lied!
As the Bishop walked slowly back to his seat, Ruth Lansing saw the terrible suffering of the spirit reflected in his face. If she were questioned about that night, she must do as he had done.
Mother in Heaven, she prayed in agony, must I do that? Can I do that?
Oh! She had never thought it would come to this. How could it happen like this! How could any one think that she would ever stand like this, alone in all the world, with the fate of her love in her hands, and not be able to speak the few little words that would save him to her and life!
She would save him! She would speak the words! What did she care for that wicked man 239 who had died yelling out that he was a murderer? Why should she keep a secret of his? One night in the early summer she had lain all through the night in the woods outside a cabin and wished for a way to kill that man. Why should she guard a secret that was no good to him or to any one now?
Who was it that said she must not speak? The Catholic Church. Then she would be a Catholic no longer. She would renounce it this minute. She had never promised anything like this. But, on the instant, she knew that that would not free her. She knew that she could throw off the outward garment of the Church, but still she would not be free to speak the words. The Church itself could not free her from the seal of the secret. What use, then, to fly from the Church, to throw off the Church, when the bands of silence would still lie mighty and unbreakable across her lips.
That awful night on the Gaunt Rocks flamed up before her, and what she saw held her.