And then the Honourable Philip Poland slowly sank into the chair on the opposite side of the fireplace, and in brief, hesitating sentences related one of the strangest stories that ever fell from any sane man’s lips—a story which held its hearer aghast, transfixed, speechless in amazement.
“There is repentance for me, Shuttleworth—tell me that there is!” cried the man who had confessed, his eyes staring and haggard in his agony. “I have told you the truth because—because when I am gone I want you, if you will, to ask your wife to take care of my darling Sonia. Financially, she is well provided for. I have seen to all that, but—ah!” he cried wildly, “she must never know that her father was——”
“Hush, Poland!” urged the rector, placing his hand tenderly upon his host’s arm. “Though I wear these clothes, I am still a man of the world like yourself. I haven’t been sinless. You wish to repent—to atone for the past. It is my duty to assist you.” And he put out his strong hand frankly.
His host drew back. But next instant he grasped it, and in doing so burst into tears.
“I make no excuse for myself,” he faltered. “I am a blackguard, and unworthy the friendship of a true honest man like yourself, Shuttleworth. But I love my darling child. She is all that has remained to me, and I want to leave her in the care of a good woman. She must forget me—forget what her father was——”
“Enough!” cried the other, holding up his hand; and then, until far into the night, the two men sat talking in low, solemn tones, discussing the future, while the attitude of Philip Poland, as he sat pale and motionless, his hands clasped upon his knees, was one of deep repentance.
That same night, if the repentant transgressor could but have seen Edmund Shuttleworth, an hour later, pacing the rectory study; if he could have witnessed the expression of fierce, murderous hatred upon that usually calm and kindly countenance; if he could have overheard the strangely bitter words which escaped the dry lips of the man in whom he had confided his secret, he would have been held aghast—aghast at the amazing truth, a truth of which he had never dreamed.
His confession had produced a complication unheard of, undreamed of, so cleverly had the rector kept his countenance and controlled his voice. But when alone he gave full vent to his anger, and laughed aloud in the contemplation of a terrible vengeance which, he declared aloud to himself, should be his.