Part 63 (1/2)
”Maria Addolorata!” he whispered.
CHAPTER XLVII.
FRANCESCA had half risen from her seat when she had seen that Lord Redin did not hear her voice, calling to him. Then she realized that she could not overtake him without running, since he had got so far, and she kept her place, leaning back once more, and trying to collect her thoughts before going home. The music was still going on in the Chapel of the Choir, and though it was dusk in the vast church, it would not be dark for some time. The vergers did not make their rounds to give warning of the hour of closing until sunset. Francesca sat still and tried to understand what she had heard. She was nervous and shaken, and she wished that she were already at home. The great dimness of the lonely transept was strangely mysterious--and the tale of the dead girl, burned to take the place of the living, was grewsome, and made her s.h.i.+ver with disgust and horror. She started nervously at the sound of a distant footstep.
But the strongest impression she had, was that of abhorrence for the unholy deeds of the man who had just left her. To a woman for whom religion in its forms as well as in its meaning was the mainstay of life on earth and the hope of life to come, the sacrilege of the crime seemed supernatural. She felt as though it must be in some way her duty to help in expiating it, lest the punishment of it should fall upon all her race. And as she thought it over, trying to look at it as simply as she could, she surveyed at a glance the whole chain of the fatal story, and saw how many terrible things had followed upon that one great sin, and how very nearly she herself had been touched by its consequences.
She had been involved in it and had become a part of it. She had felt it about her for years, in her friends.h.i.+p for Reanda. It had contributed to the causes of his death, if it had not actually caused it. She, in helping to bring about his marriage with the daughter of her sinning kinswoman, had unconsciously made a link in the chain. Her friends.h.i.+p for the artist no longer looked as innocent as formerly. Gloria had accused him of loving her, Francesca. Had she not loved him? Whether she had or not, she had done things which had wounded his innocent young wife. In a sudden and painful illumination of the past, she saw that she herself had not been sinless; that she had been selfish, if nothing worse; that she had craved Reanda's presence and devoted friends.h.i.+p, if nothing more; that death had taken from her more than a friend. She saw all at once the vanity of her own belief in her own innocence, and she accused herself very bitterly of many things which had been quite hidden from her until then.
She was roused by a footstep behind her, and she started at the sound of a voice she knew, but which had changed oddly since she had last heard it. It was stern, deep, and clear still, but the life was gone out of it. It had an automatic sound.
”I beg your pardon, Princess,” said Paul Griggs, stopping close to her behind the bench. ”May I speak to you for a moment?”
She turned her head. As the sun went down, the church grew lighter for a little while, as it often does. Yet she could hardly see the man's eyes at all, as she looked into his face. They were all in the shadow and had no light in them.
”Sit down,” she said mechanically.
She could not refuse to speak to him, and, indeed, she would not have refused to receive him had she been at home when he had called that day.
Socially speaking, according to the standards of those around her, he had done nothing which she could very severely blame. A woman he had dearly loved had come to him for protection, and he had not driven her away. That was the social value of what he had done. The moral view of it all was individual with herself. Society gave her no right to treat him rudely because she disapproved of his past life. For the rest, she had liked him in former times, and she believed that there was much more good in him than at first appeared.
She was almost glad that he had disturbed her solitude just then, for a nervous sense of loneliness was creeping upon her; and though there had been nothing to prevent her from rising and going away, she had felt that something was holding her in her seat, a shadowy something that was oppressive and not natural, that descended upon her out of the gloomy heights, and that rose around her from the secret depths below, where the great dead lay side by side in their leaden coffins.
”Sit down,” she repeated, as Griggs came round the bench.
He sat down beside her. There was a little distance between them, and he sat rather stiffly, holding his hat on his knees.
”I should apologize for disturbing you,” he began. ”I have been twice to your house to-day, but you were out. What I wish to speak of is rather urgent. I heard that you might be here, and so I came.”
”Yes,” she said, and waited for him to say more.
”What is it?” she asked presently, as he did not speak at once.
”It is about Dalrymple--about Lord Redin,” he said at last. ”You used to know him. Do you ever see him now?”
Francesca looked at him with a little surprise, but she answered quietly, as though the question were quite a natural one.
”He was here five minutes ago. Yes, I often see him.”
”Would you do him a service?” asked Griggs, in his calm and indifferent tone.
He was forcing himself to do what was plainly his duty, but he was utterly incapable of taking any interest in the matter. Francesca hesitated before she answered. An hour earlier she would have a.s.sented readily enough, but now the idea of doing anything which could tend to bring her into closer relations with Lord Redin was disagreeable.
”I do not think you will refuse,” said Griggs, as she did not speak.
”His life is in danger.”
She turned quickly and scrutinized the expressionless features. In the glow of the sunset the church was quite light. The total unconcern of the man's manner contrasted strangely with the importance of what he said. Francesca felt that something must be wrong.
”You say that very coolly,” she observed, and her tone showed that she was incredulous.
”And you do not believe me,” answered Griggs, quite unmoved. ”It is natural, I suppose. I will try to explain.”