“I can't do it.”
“That's a deliberate falsehood, sir. Your conscience tells you it's a he. In your last conversation with me, at the Brazen Head, you as good as promised to do something of the kind in a couple of months. That time and more has now passed, and yet you have done nothing.”
“How do you know that?”
“Don't I know that the widow has got no trace of her child? And right well I know that you could restore him to her if you wished. However, I leave you now to the comfort of your own hardened and wicked heart. The day will come soon when the black catalogue of your own guilt will rise up fearfully before you—when a death-bed, with all its horrors, will startle the very soul within you by its fiery recollections. It is then, my friend, that you will feel—when it is too late—what it is to have tampered with and despised the mercy of God, and have neglected, while you had time, to prepare yourself for His awful judgment. Oh, what would I not do to turn your heart from the dark spirit of revenge that broods in it, and changes you into a demon! Mark these words, Anthony. They are spoken, God knows, with an anxious and earnest wish for your repentance, and, if neglected, they will rise and sound the terrible sentence of your condemnation at the last awful hour. Listen to them, then—listen to them in time, I entreat, I beseech you—I would go on my bare knees to you to do so.” Here his tears fell fast, as he proceeded, “I would; and, believe me, I have thought of you and prayed for you, and now you see that I cannot but weep for you, when I know that you have the knowledge—perhaps the guilt of this heinous crime locked up in your heart, and will not reveal it. Have compassion, then, on the widow—enable her friends to restore her child to her longing arms; purge yourself of this great guilt, and you may believe me, that even in a temporal point of view it will be the best rewarded action you ever performed; but this is little—the darkness that is over your heart will disappear, your conscience will become light, and all its reflections sweet and full of heavenly comfort; your death-bed will be one of peace, and hope, and joy. Restore, then, the widow's son, and forbear your deadly revenge against that wretched baronet, and God will restore you to a happiness that the world can neither give nor take away.”
Corbet's cheek became pale as death itself whilst the good man spoke, but no other symptom of emotion was perceptible; unless, indeed, that his hands, as he unconsciously played with the money, were quite tremulous.
The priest, having concluded, rose to depart, having completely forgotten the principal object of his visit.
“Where are you going?” said Corbet, “won't you take the money with you?”
“That depends upon your reply,” returned the priest; “and I entreat you to let me have a favorable one.”
“One part of what you wish I will do,” he replied; “the other is out of my power at present. I am not able to do it yet.”
“I don't properly understand you,” said the other; “or rather, I don't understand you at all. Do you mean what you have just said to be favorable or otherwise?”