What use to go over the things that he had done, the things that he had advised? What use to say, here he had done his best, there he thought only of the right and the wise thing. Somewhere he had spoken foolishly, or he had been headstrong in his interference, or he had acted without thought and prayer. What use to go over the record? He could only carry this matter to God and let Him see his heart.
He stumbled in the half light of the darkened little church and sank heavily into the last pew. Out of the sorrow and anguish of his heart he cried out from afar to the Presence on the little altar, where he, Bishop of Alden, had often spoken with much authority.
When Cynthe Cardinal saw Ruth Lansing go up into the witness stand she sank down quietly into a front seat and seemed fairly to devour the other girl with the steady gaze of her fierce black eyes. She hung upon every fleeting wave of the contending emotions that showed themselves on Ruth’s face. She was convinced that this girl knew that 246 Rafe Gadbeau had confessed to the murder of Samuel Rogers and that Jeffrey Whiting was innocent. She had not thought that Ruth would be called as a witness, and Dardis, in fact, had only decided upon it at the last moment.
Once Cynthe Cardinal had been very near to hating this girl, for she had seen Rafe Gadbeau leave herself at a dance, one afternoon a very long time ago, and spend the greater part of the afternoon talking gaily to Ruth Lansing. Now Rafe Gadbeau was gone. There was nothing left of him whom Cynthe Cardinal had loved but a memory. But that memory was as much to her as was the life of Jeffrey Whiting to this other girl. She was sorry for the other girl. Who would not be? What would that girl do? If the question was not asked directly, it was not likely that the girl would tell what she knew. She would not wish to tell. She would certainly try to avoid it. But if the question came to her of a sudden, without warning, without time for thought? What then? Would that girl be strong enough to deny, to deny and to keep on denying?
Who could tell? The girl was a Catholic. But she was a convert. She did not know the terrible secret of the confessional as they knew it who had been born to the Faith.
Cynthe herself had meant to keep away from this trial. She knew it was no place for her to carry the awful secret that she had hidden away 247 in her heart. No matter how deeply she might have it hidden, the fear hung over her that men would probe for it. A word, a look, a hint might be enough to set some on the search for it and she had had a superstition that it was a secret of a nature that it could not be hidden forever. Some day some one would tear it from her heart. She knew that it was dangerous for her to be in Danton during these days when the hill people were talking of nothing but the killing of Rogers and hunting for any possible fact that might make Jeffrey Whiting’s story believable. But she had been drawn irresistibly to the trial and had sat all day yesterday and to-day listening feverishly, avidly to every word that was said, waiting to hear, and praying against hearing the name of the man she had loved. The idea of protecting his name and his memory from the blight of his deed had become more than a religion, more than a sacred trust to her. It filled not only her own thought and life but it seemed even to take up that great void in her world which Rafe Gadbeau had filled.
When she had heard his name mentioned in that sudden questioning of the Bishop, she had almost jumped from her seat to cry out to him that he must know nothing. But that was foolish, she reflected. They might as well have asked the stones on the top of the Gaunt Rocks to tell Rafe Gadbeau’s secret as to ask it from the Bishop.
But this girl was different. You could not tell what she might do under the test. If she stood the test, if she kept the seal unbroken upon her lips, then would Cynthe be her willing slave for life. She would love that girl, she would fetch for her, work for her, die for her!
When that point-blank question came leaping upon the tortured girl in the stand, Cynthe rose to her feet. She expected to hear the girl stammer and blurt out something that would give them a chance to ask her further questions. But when she saw the girl reel and quiver in pain, when she saw her gasp for breath and self-control, when she saw the hunted agony in her eyes, a great light broke in upon the heart of Cynthe Cardinal. Here was not a pale girl of the convent who could not know what love was! Here was a woman, a sister woman, who could suffer, who for the sake of one greater thing could trample her love under foot, and who could and did sum it all up in one steady word––“Nothing.”