"On receiving the penitent's confession," he said, "it is the duty of the Coptic priest to take his sin upon himself just as if it were his own, and if I, my son——"
"But you can't! It's impossible! God forbid it," said Gordon; and then the saintly old soul, allowing that there were sacred places in the heart of man which only God's eye should see, spoke of atonement, whereby he that is guilty of any sin may begin his journey towards repentance, and be numbered at last, if his penitence be true, among the living who live in God's peace.
"Why should any of us, my son, no matter how foul the stain of sin we have contracted, live in the dread of miscarrying for ever while we have energy to atone?" said the good old man in his worn and husky voice; and then the tides of Gordon's troubled mind, which had ebbed and flowed like the sea on a desolate shore under the blank darkness of a starless night, seemed to be suddenly brightened by a light from the morning.
"Father," he said, "could you send for somebody?"
"Indeed I could—who is it?" asked the Patriarch.
"Captain Hafiz Ahmed of the Egyptian Army. He can be found at headquarters. Say that some one he knows well wishes to see him at once."
"I'll tell Michael to take the message immediately," said the Patriarch, and his shuffling old feet went off on his errand.
The new light that had dawned on Gordon's mind was the same as he had seen before, and yet it was now quite different. He would deliver himself up, as he had first intended to do, but in humility, not in pride, in submission to the will of God, not in defiance of the power of man. A reclaiming voice seemed to say to him, "Atone for your crime! Confess everything! Die—on the gallows if need be! Better suffer the pains of death than the furies of remorse! Give your own life for the life you have taken, no matter by what impulse of self-defence or devilish accident of fate!"
Hafiz would carry his message to headquarters, or perhaps help him to go there, and the good old Patriarch would explain why he had not gone before.
"It is the only way now, the only hope," he thought.