Mrs. Gerald had listened with intense interest to this story, and when it was ended she drew a long breath. “Poor man!” she sighed. “Has he a wife?”
“Yes; he has a wife who is all devotion to him, and who will follow him to the last. She will never be separated from him.”
“Will she go to prison with him? Will she be allowed to do that?” Mrs. Gerald asked in surprise.
“Oh! it is not a question of imprisonment,” the priest replied. “He has escaped, and will probably never be taken. His confession was written, sealed, and entrusted to a priest, to be opened at a certain time. It was opened this morning.”
The two watched Mrs. Gerald with trembling anxiety as she sat a moment with downcast eyes, musing over this strange story. Honora did not dare to breathe or stir, lest she should loosen the thunderbolt that hung suspended over their heads, ready to drop, and the priest was inwardly praying for wisdom to speak the right word.
“I hope he has no mother,” Mrs. Gerald said, without looking up.
“That is the hardest part of all,” said F. O'Donovan. “He has a mother. It is that which renders his remorse so terrible. But fortunately she is a Christian woman, who will know how to bend to the will of God, and leave her afflictions at his feet. She will be comforted by the thought that her son is a sincere penitent, and is by this awful lesson put for ever on his guard against sins which might otherwise have seemed to him trivial.”
“Oh! but think of her responsibility!” exclaimed Mrs. Gerald, [pg 404] raising her eyes quickly. “Think of her remorse and fear when she looks back on her training of that child, and thinks that all his faults and crimes may be laid at her door. I know a mother's heart, F. O'Donovan, and I tell you there will be no comfort for that mother. You cannot have seen her. Where is she? I would like to go to her.”
“She does not yet know,” replied the priest, almost in a whisper, and stopped there, though other words seemed about to follow.
She gazed at him in surprise, and her look began to grow strange. She only looked intently, but said nothing; and in that dreadful silence Honora Pembroke's arm closed tightly about her waist, and her breath trembled on the mother's paling cheek.