"I followed the Duchess in vain for two whole days."
"And then?"
"And then I hastened home."
"And did that take nine days and nights!" cried Correntian.
"Brother! what are you saying? I left you only three days since."
"Woe upon you, son of the evil one!" screamed Correntian. "Where were you? What cheated your senses as to the time? Did you linger in the nether world that the days hastened by uncounted? Were you bewitched that you did not observe that since you left more than a week is past?"
"Merciful Heaven! a week?" said Donatus, "and she told me that I had slept but a night. Oh Beata! Beata! could you so deceive me?"
"Beata!" repeated Correntian. "Then it was a woman who stole all consciousness of time from you! And you ruined all for a woman's sake. This is how you kept your word to us, this is what came of your vows? Woe, woe, all is come to pass that I foretold at your birth; you were the changeling laid by the devil in our peaceful home to work our ruin, and yet you deceived even me into recalling my own prediction and trusting you. Nay more, Hear, oh Lord! and punish me for my sin. You were the first human being I ever loved. And at the very moment when I thought to set the crown of martyrdom on your head you relapse into the base element whence you rose and drag us all down with you in your fall!"
"Correntian, hear me. Yes, it is true, I have sinned; yes I have led you all into ruin for a girl's sake, and I will expiate it through all eternity. Not even my blindness could save me, Eusebius was right, the devil is more cunning than man, and yet I am innocent and pure!"
"Pure," shouted Correntian. "How dare you call yourself so, criminal," and with all the added horror of his suffering he raised the upper part of his body and stretched out his arm towards Donatus. "The curse that was upon you even in your mother's womb, I take it up and pour it, a double curse upon your head. Only your father's curse has weighed upon you hitherto, I add to it your mother's curse; for your mother is the Church you have brought to shame. An outcast shall you be, perjured wretch, an outcast from the Church, an outcast from humanity--an outcast from the flock of penitents who yet may hope. The grass shall wither under your feet; the hand be palsied that offers you the sacred Host; death and pestilence shall visit him who takes pity on your hunger. Your bones shall fall to dust, and that their pestilential reek may not poison the earth that yields food for other mortals, I bid you flee away to the ends of the earth, up to the realm of death, to the ice of the glaciers, as far as your feet can bear you, where not a blade can grow that can imbibe the poison of your corpse. All that is mortal of you shall be blotted out from creation to the very last jot, and what is immortal shall suffer to all eternity such torment as has racked my very marrow for these three days--" His voice failed, the rigor of death had fallen upon him, he fell back on the stone floor. Once more he raised himself, his clenched fists clutched at the fissures in the ground in his last agony.