Ismena had never before heard the paternal voice of her husband assume the firm and terrible tone with which he now cast her treachery in her face, and she sank under it as if struck by lightning. His profound sorrow and stern condemnation seemed to open an abyss between him and her, and render it impossible for the lips which had pronounced that severe sentence ever to utter the pardon she craved more than life. Pardon! most beautiful and perfect fruit of love, of which the value is so great that God's Son gave his blood to buy it, and which, therefore, his Father grants for a single tear, so great is his mercy! Pardon, divine gift, that pride neither asks nor yields, but that humility both implores and concedes. Pardon, that, like an efficacious intercession, lifts the sinner to heaven.
Had she perchance waited too long to ask it? For one moment the torrent of angry blood had swept generosity and sacred mercy from the heart of him she had injured; and must she die in that moment? She sprang from the bed, and, falling upon her knees, laid her clenched hands against his breast, shrieking in a voice intercepted by the death-rattle:
"Pardon!"
Her last thought, her last feeling, her last breath dissolved in that last word. It reached the heart of her husband. Bending forward, he caught her in his arms, and lifted—a corpse.
And from the clock, as if time had waited for this moment to toll a voluntary and pious passing bell, there issued twelve slow and measured strokes.
Chapter VII.
A secret fault, drawing with it its terrible consequences, interlaced one with another, like a nest of venomous serpents, had already cost the one who committed it her happiness and life, and the one who conceived it her reason; for Nora, shocked into insanity by the fearful curse and death of her mistress, was the inmate of a madhouse. But its hideous trail continued still, entangling and envenoming the hitherto tranquil life of the General Count of Alcira. The good old man never ceased to reproach himself for the cruel epithet indignation had forced from his lips; the only expression he had ever uttered that could wound the poor worn heart that implored but one pious word to permit it to cease its beating in peace. Instead of that word, he had cast the cruel taunt under which it had burst in despair. He wept burning tears for not having conceded the pardon which could have been but one instant wanting to his generous soul. And that instant had been her last. His forgiveness might have soothed her anguish, prolonged her life, and sweetened her death; and he had refused it. This remembrance became in its turn a remorse, and poisoned his existence.
The reaction he experienced, with his natural goodness of heart, had the effect to render almost excusable in his eyes a fault counterbalanced by so many shining qualities, and blotted out by such unparalleled remorse and by mortal sufferings; for death, when it takes its prey, has the sweet prerogative of carrying with it under the earth the evil it has done, leaving the good behind for an epitaph.
The general atoned for that one moment in which he had forgotten to be a Christian by multiplied works of charity, offered in sacrifice to obtain from heaven the pardon earth had denied the penitent, and by incessant offerings for the repose of her soul. Offerings which the Eternal would receive; for the Creator has not left man a foundling. He has acknowledged him as a son, has given him precepts, and promised him, from the cross, a glorious inheritance.
Every morning a mass was offered for the rest of her whose image dwelt in the heart of the old man who knelt at the foot of the altar, uniting his fervent petitions with those of the priest that was sacrificing.