Part 122 (1/2)

”I have been ill indeed,” he said, ”but not from the cause you speak of.

The just judgment of G.o.d has overtaken me.”

The Clerk of the Rolls sank back into his seat.

”The moment came when I had to sit in judgment on my own sin, the moment when she who had lost her honour in trusting to mine stood in the dock before me. I, who had been the first cause of her misfortunes, sat on the bench as her judge. She is now in prison and I am here. The same law which has punished her failing with infamy has advanced me to power.”

There was an icy quiet in the court, such as comes with the first gleam of the dawn. By that quick instinct which takes possession of a crowd at great moments, the people understood everything--the impurity of the character that had seemed so pure, the nullity of the life that had seemed so n.o.ble.

”When I asked myself what there was left to me to do, I could see but one thing. It was impossible to go on administering justice, being myself unjust, and remembering that higher bar before which I too was yet to stand. I must cease to be Deemster. But that was only my protection against the future, not my punishment for the past. I could not surrender myself to any earthly court, because I was guilty of no crime against earthly law. The law cannot take a man into the court of the conscience. He must take himself there.”

He stopped again, and then said quietly, ”My sentence is this open confession of my sin, and renunciation of the worldly advantages which have been bought by the suffering of others.”

It was no longer possible to doubt him. He had sinned, and he had reaped the reward of his sin. Those rewards were great and splendid, but he had come to renounce them all. The dreams of ambition were fulfilled, the miracle of life was realised, the world was conquered and at his feet, yet he was there to give up all. The quiet of the court had warmed to a hush of awe. He turned to the bench, but every face was down. Then his own eyes fell.

”Gentlemen of the Council, you who have served the island so long and so honourably, perhaps you blame me for permitting you to come together for the hearing of this confession. But if you knew the temptation I was under to fly away without making it, to turn my back on my past, to shuffle, my fault on to Fate, to lay the blame on Life, to persuade myself that I could not have acted differently, you would believe it was not lightly, and G.o.d knows, not vainly, that I suffered you to come here to see me mount my scaffold.”

He turned back to the body of the court.

”My countrymen and countrywomen, you who have been so much more kind to me than my character justified or my conduct merited. I say good-bye; but not as one who is going away. In conquering the impulse to go without confessing, I conquered the desire to go at all. Here, where my old life has fallen to ruin, my new life must be built up. That is the only security. It is also the only justice. On this island, where my fall is known, my uprising may come--as is most right--only with bitter struggle and sorrow and tears. But when it comes, it will come securely.

It may be in years, in many years, but I am willing to wait--I am ready to labour. And, meantime, she who was worthy of my highest honour will share my lowest degradation. That is the way of all women--G.o.d love and keep them!”

The exaltation of his tones infected everybody.

”It may be that you think I am to be pitied. There have been hours of my life when I have been deserving of pity. But they have been the hours, the dark hours, when, in the prodigality of your grat.i.tude, you have loaded me with distinctions, and a shadow has haunted me, saying, 'Philip Christian, they think you a just judge--you are not a just judge; they think you an upright man--you are not an upright man.' Do not pity me now, when the dark hours are pa.s.sed, when the new life has begun, when I am listening at length to the voice of my heart, which has all along been the voice of G.o.d.”

His eyes shone, his mouth was smiling.

”If you think how narrowly I escaped the danger of letting things go on as they were going, of covering up my fault, of concealing my true character, of living as a sham and dying as a hypocrite, you will consider me worthy of envy instead. Good-bye! good-bye! G.o.d bless you!”