Part 16 (1/2)
”Oh! There is one man!” said Aloysius, with a smile.
”Yes, good father!” And Morgana left the pa.s.sion-flowers and moved slowly back to her seat on the stone-bench--”There is one man! He was my third and last experience of happiness. When I first met him, my whole heart gave itself in one big pulsation--but like a wave of the sea, the pulsation recoiled, and never again beat on the grim rock of human egoism!” She laughed gaily, and a delicate colour flushed her face. ”But I was happy while the 'wave' lasted,--and when it broke, I still played on the sh.o.r.e with its pretty foam-bells.”
”You loved this man?” and the priest's grave eyes dwelt on her searchingly.
”I suppose so--for the moment! Yet no,--it was not love--it was just an 'attraction'--he was--he IS--clever, and thinks he can change the face of the world. But he is fooling with fire! I tell you I tried to help him--for he is deadly poor. But he would have none of me nor of what he calls my 'vulgar wealth.' This is a case in point where wealth is useless! You see?”
Don Aloysius was silent.
”Then”--Morgana went on--”Alison is right. The witchery of the Northern Highlands is in my blood,--never a love for me--alone I am--alone I must be!--never a love for a 'fey' woman!”
Over the priest's face there pa.s.sed a quiver as of sudden pain.
”You wrong yourself, my child”--he said, slowly--”You wrong yourself very greatly! You have a power of which you appear to be unconscious--a great, a terrible power!--you compel interest--you attract the love of others even if you yourself love no one--you draw the very soul out of a man--”
He paused, abruptly.
Morgana raised her eyes,--the blue lightning gleam flashed in their depths.
”Ah, yes!” she half whispered--”I know I have THAT power!”
Don Aloysius rose to his feet.
”Then,--if you know it,--in G.o.d's name do not exercise it!” he said.
His voice shook--and with his right hand he gripped the crucifix he wore as though it were a weapon of self-defence. Morgana looked at him wonderingly for a moment,--then drooped her head with a strange little air of sudden penitence. Aloysius drew a quick sharp breath as of one in effort,--then he spoke again, unsteadily--
”I mean”--he said, smiling forcedly--”I mean that you should not--you should not break the heart of--of--the poor Giulio for instance!... it would not be kind.”
She lifted her eyes again and fixed them on him.
”No, it would not be kind!” she said, softly--”Dear Don Aloysius, I understand! And I will remember!” She glanced at a tiny diamond-set watch-bracelet on her wrist--”How late it is!--nearly all the morning gone! I have kept you so long listening to my talk--forgive me! I will run away now and leave you to think about my 'intervals' of happiness,--will you?--they are so few compared to yours!”
”Mine?” he echoed amazedly.
”Yes, indeed!--yours! Your whole life is an interval of happiness between this world and the next, because you are satisfied in the service of G.o.d!”
”A poor service!” he said, turning his gaze away from her elfin figure and s.h.i.+ning hair--”Unworthy,--shameful!--marred by sin at every moment!
A priest of the Church must learn to do without happiness such as ordinary life can give--and without love,--such as woman may give--but--after all--the sacrifice is little.”
She smiled at him, sweetly--tenderly,
”Very little!” she said--”So little that it is not worth a regret!
Good-bye! But not for long! Come and see me soon!”
Moving across the cloister with her light step she seemed to float through the suns.h.i.+ne like a part of it, and as she disappeared a kind of shadow fell, though no cloud obscured the sun. Don Aloysius watched her till she had vanished,--then turned aside into a small chapel opening out on the cloistered square--a chapel which formed part of the monastic house to which he belonged as Superior,--and there, within that still, incense-sweetened sanctuary, he knelt before the n.o.ble, pictured Head of the Man of Sorrows in silent confession and prayer.
CHAPTER X
Roger Seaton was a man of many philosophies. He had one for every day in the week, yet none wherewith to thoroughly satisfy himself. While still a mere lad he had taken to the study of science as a duck takes to water,--no new discovery or even suggestion of a new discovery missed his instant and close attention. His avidity for learning was insatiable,--his intense and insistent curiosity on all matters of chemistry gave a knife-like edge to the quality of his brain, making it sharp, brilliant and incisive. To him the ordinary social and political interests of the world were simply absurd. The idea that the greater majority of men should be created for no higher purpose than those of an insect, just to live, eat, breed, and die, was to him preposterous.