Back in the hall he dropped on to the form, for his knees could support him no longer. Love and conscience, humanity and religion clamoured loud in his heart and tore him in pieces. “Traitor!” cried one. “But the man's dying!” cried another. “Judas!” “She is hovering on the brink of hell and he may save her soul from death and damnation!” When the struggle was over, conscience and religion were worsted, and he was more cunning than before.
Then the clock chimed the three quarters, and he raised his head. The streets, usually so quiet at that hour, were becoming noisy with traffic. There were the shuffling of many feet on the hard snow and the sharp crack of voices.
He opened the great door of the house with as little noise as possible and stepped out into the courtyard. The bloodhound started from its quarters and began to growl, but he silenced it with a word, and the creature came up and licked his hand. He crossed the court with quick and noiseless footsteps, lifted the latch of the sacristy and pushed through into the church.
There was a low, droning sound in the empty place. It ran a space and was then sucked in like the sound of the sea at the harbour steps. Brother Paul was sitting in the chancel with a lamp on the stall by his side. His head leaned forward, his eyes were closed, and the light on his thin face made it look pallid and lifeless. John called to him in a whisper.
“Paul!”
He rose quickly and followed John into the courtyard, looking wild and weak and lost.
“But the lamp—I've forgotten it,” he said. “Shall I go back and put it out?”
“How simple you are!” said John. “Somebody may be lying awake in the house. Do you want him to see that you've left your penance an hour too soon?”
“True.”
“Come this way—quietly.”