Part 51 (2/2)
”Forgive me--oh, forgive me! I did not mean it--oh, forgive your Rosalie!”
Stooping over her, he answered:
”It is good for me to know the whole truth. What hurts you may give me will pa.s.s--for life must end, and my life cannot be long enough to pay the price of the hurts I have given you. I could bear a thousand--one for every hour--if they could bring back the light to your eye, the joy to your heart. Could prayer, do you think, make me sorrier than I am? I have hurt what I would have spared from hurt at the cost of my life--and all the lives in all the world!” he added fiercely.
”Forgive me--oh, forgive your Rosalie!” she pleaded. ”I did not know what I was saying--I was mad.”
”It was all so sane and true,” he said, like one who, on the brink of death, finds a satisfaction in speaking the perfect truth. ”I am glad to hear the truth--I have been such a liar.”
She looked up startled, her tears blinding her. ”You have not deceived me?” she asked bitterly. ”Oh, you have not deceived me--you have loved me, have you not?” It was that which mattered, that only. Moveless and eager, she looked--looked at him, waiting, as it were, for sentence.
”I never lied to you, Rosalie--never!” he answered, and he touched her hand.
She gave a moan of relief at his words. ”Oh, then, oh, then... ” she said, in a low voice, and the tears in her eyes dried away.
”I meant that until I knew you, I kept deceiving myself and others all my life--”
”But without knowing it?” she said eagerly.
”Perhaps, without quite knowing it.”
”Until you knew me?” she asked, in quick, quivering tones.
”Till I knew you,” he answered.
”Then I have done you good--not ill?” she asked, with painful breathlessness.
”The only good there may be in me is you, and you only,” he said, and he choked something rising in his throat, seeing the greatness of her heart, her dear desire to have entered into his life to his own good. He would have said that there was no good in him at all, but that he wished to comfort her.
A little cry of joy broke from her lips. ”Oh, that--that!” she cried, with happy tears. ”Won't you kiss me now?” she added softly.
He clasped her in his arms, and though his eyes were dry, his heart wept tears of blood.
CHAPTER LII. THE COMING OF BILLY
Chaudiere had made--and lost--a reputation. The Pa.s.sion Play in the valley had become known to a whole country--to the Cure's and the Seigneur's unavailing regret. They had meant to revive the great story for their own people and the Indians--a homely, beautiful object-lesson, in an Eden--like innocence and quiet and repose; but behold the world had invaded them! The vanity of the Notary had undone them. He had written to the great papers of the province, telling of the advent of the play, and pilgrimages had been organised, and excursions had been made to the spot, where a simple people had achieved a crude but n.o.ble picture of the life and death of the Hero of Christendom. The Cure viewed with consternation the invasion of their quiet. It was no longer his own Chaudiere; and when, on a Sunday, his dear people were jostled from the church to make room for strangers, his gentle eloquence seemed to forsake him, he spoke haltingly, and his intoning of the Ma.s.s lacked the old soothing simplicity.
”Ah, my dear Seigneur!” he said, on the Sunday before the playing was to end, ”we have overshot the mark.”
The Seigneur nodded and turned his head away. ”There is an English play which says, 'I have shot mine arrow o'er the house and hurt my brother.'
That's it--that's it! We began with religion, and we end with greed, and pride, and notoriety.”
”What do we want of fame! The price is too high, Maurice. Fame is not good for the hearts and minds of simple folk.”
”It will soon be over.”
”I dread a sordid reaction.”
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