“Where is now your pride of birth? It is gone. Where is your contempt for things common and unclean? You have had the vision of St. Peter. If there are things common and unclean, they belong to you as well as to the meaner sort—for to that kind you also belong.”
“Something of this I have understood.”
“And there was the other purpose. While with blow after blow it is destroyed, you were led on and on with this mystery; voices from the dead were brought to you, till at last the whole mystery was made plain and stood out confessed—and with it I was moved and compelled to follow you, till at the end I was taken to see the dying man, and to deliver to him the forgiveness of the man he slew. Oh, Leonard, believe me; if it is true that the soul survives the death of the body, if it is possible for the soul still to see what goes on among the living, then have you and I been directed and led.”
Again he made no reply. But he was moved beyond the power of speech.
“Forgiveness came long since. Oh! I am sure of that—long since. That which followed—was it Consequence or Punishment?—lasted for seventy years. Oh, what a life! Oh, what a long, long agony! Always to dwell on one moment; day after day, night after night, with never a change and no end; to whirl the heavy branch upon the head of the brother, to see him fall back dead, to know that he was a murderer. Leonard! Leonard! think of it!”
“I do think of it, Constance. But you must not go on thinking of it.”
“No, no—this is the last time. Forgiveness, yes—he would forgive. God’s sweet souls cannot but forgive. But Justice must prevail, with the condemnation of self-reproach, till Forgiveness overcomes—until, in some mysterious way, the sinner can forgive himself.”
She sat down and buried her face in her hands.
“You say that we have been led—perhaps. I neither deny nor accept. But whatever has been done for that old man whom we buried this morning, whatever has been done for the endowment of myself with cousins and people—well, of the more common sort—one thing more it has accomplished. Between you and me, Constance, there flows a stream of blood.”
She lifted her head; she rose from the chair; she stepped closer to him; she stood before him face to face, her hands clasped, her face pale, the tears yet lying on her cheek, her eyes soft and full of a strange tender light.