Until then, it was his life to pace to and fro along the streets of London. Somewhere in this vast labyrinth there was a home to which he had a right; a hearth where he could plant himself and claim it for his own. He was master of it, and of a wife, and children; he, the lonely, almost penniless man. It would be a small thing to him to pay the penalty the law could demand of him. A few years more or less in Dartmoor Prison would be nothing to him, if at the end of them he saw a home waiting for him to return to it. But he never sought to look at the exterior even of that spot to which he had a right. He made no effort to see Felicita.
He stayed till he touched his last shilling. It was already winter, and the short, dark days, with their thick fogs, made the wintry months little better than one long night. To-morrow he must leave England, never to return to it. He strayed aimlessly about the gloomy streets, letting his feet bear him whither they would, until he found himself looking down through the iron railings upon the deserted yard in front of the Houses of Parliament. The dark ma.s.s of the building loomed heavily through the yellow fog, but beyond it came the sound of bells ringing in the invisible Abbey. It was the hour for morning prayer, and Jean Merle sauntered listlessly onwards until he reached the northern entrance and turned into the transept. The dim daylight scarcely lit up the lofty arches in the roof or the farther end of the long aisles, but he gave no heed to either. He sank down on a chair and bent his gray head on the back of the chair before him; the sweet solemn chanting of the white-robed choristers echoed under the roof, and the sacred and soothing tones of prayer floated pest him. But he did not move or lift his head. He sat there absorbed in his own thoughts, and the hours seemed only as floating minutes to him. Visitors came and went, chatting close beside him, and the vergers, with their quiet footsteps, came one by one to look at this motionless, poverty-stricken form, whose face no man could see, but n.o.body disturbed him. He had a right to be there, as still, and as solitary, and as silent as he pleased.
But when Canon Pascal came up the long aisle to evening prayers and saw again the same gray head bowed down in the same despondent att.i.tude as he had left it in the morning, he could scarcely refrain himself from pausing then and there, before the evening service proceeded, to speak to this man. He had caught a momentary glimpse of his face, and it had haunted him in his study in the interval, until he had half reproached himself for not answering to that silent appeal its wretchedness had made. But he had had no expectation of seeing it again.
It was dark by the time the evening service was over, and Canon Pascal hastily divested himself of his surplice, that he might not seem to approach the stranger as a clergyman, but rather as an equal. The Abbey was being cleared of its visitors, and the lights were being put out one by one, when he sat down on the seat next to Jean Merle"s, and laid his hand with a gentle pressure on his arm. Jean Merle started and lifted up his head. It was too dark for them to see each other well; but Canon Pascal"s voice was full of friendly urgency.
"They are going to close the Abbey," he said; "and you"ve been here all day, without food, my friend. Is there any special reason why you should pa.s.s a long, dark winter"s day in such a manner? I would be glad to serve you if I can. Perhaps you are a stranger in London?"
"I have been seeking the guidance of G.o.d," answered Jean Merle, in a bewildered yet unutterably sorrowful voice.
"That is good," replied Canon Pascal; "that is the best. But it is good also at times to seek man"s guidance. It is G.o.d, doubtless, who has sent me to you. As His servant, I earnestly desire to serve you."
"If you would listen to me under a solemn seal of secrecy!" cried Jean Merle.
"Are you a Catholic?" asked Canon Pascal. "Is it a confessor you want?"
"I am not a Catholic," he answered; "but there is a strong desire in my soul to confess. My burden would be lighter if any man would share it, so far as to keep my secret."
"Does it touch the life of any fellow-creature?" inquired Canon Pascal; "is there any great crime in it?"
"No; not what you are thinking," he said; "there is sin in it; ay, and crime; but not a crime like that."
"Then I will listen to it under a solemn promise of secrecy, whatever it may be," replied Canon Pascal. "But the vergers are waiting to close the Abbey. Come with me; my home is close by, within the precincts."
Jean Merle had risen obediently as he spoke, but, exhausted and weary, he staggered as he stood upon his feet. Canon Pascal drew his arm within his own. This simple action was to him full of a friendliness to which he had been long a stranger. To clasp another man"s hand, to walk arm-in-arm with him, he felt keenly how much of implied brotherhood was in them. He was ready to go anywhere with Canon Pascal, almost as a child guided and cared for by an older and wiser brother.
They pa.s.sed out of the Abbey into the cloisters, dimly lighted by the lamps, which had been lit in good time this dark November evening. The low, black-browed arches, which had echoed to the footsteps of sorrow-stricken men for more than eight hundred years, resounded to their tread as they walked beneath them in silence. Jean Merle suffered himself to be led without a question, like one in a dream. There seemed some faint reminiscence from the past of this man, with his harsh features, and kindly, genial expression, the deep-set eyes, beaming with a benign light from under the rugged eyebrows, and the firm yet friendly pressure of his guiding arm; and his mind was groping about the dark labyrinth of memory to seize his former knowledge of him, if there had ever been any. There was a vague apprehension about him lest he should discover that this friend was no stranger, and his tongue must be tied, even though what he was about to say would be under the inviolable seal of secrecy.
They had not far to go, for Canon Pascal turned aside into a little square, open to the black November sky, and stopping at a door in the gray, old walls, opened it with a latch-key. They entered a narrow pa.s.sage, and Canon Pascal turned at once to his study, which was close by. As he pushed open the door, he said, "Go in, my friend; I will be with you in a moment."
Jean Merle saw before him an old-fashioned room with a low ceiling.
There was no light besides the warm, red glow of a fire, which was no longer burning with yellow flame, but which lit up sufficiently the figure of a woman seated on a low stool on the hearth, with her head resting on the hand that shaded her eyes. It was a figure familiar to him in his old life--that life which lay on the other side of Roland Sefton"s grave. He had seen the same well-shaped head, with its soft brown hair, and the round outline of the averted cheek and chin, a thousand times in old Marlowe"s cottage on the uplands, sitting in the red firelight as she was sitting now. All the intervening years were swept away in an instant--his bitter anguish and unavailing repentance--the long solitude and gnawing remorse--all was swept clean away from his mind. He felt the strength and freshness of his boyhood come back to him, as if the breeze of the uplands was blowing softly yet keenly across his throbbing and fevered temples. Even his voice caught back for the moment the ring of his early youth as he stood on the threshold, forgetting all else but the sight that filled his eyes.
"Phebe!" he cried; "little Phebe Marlowe!"
The cry startled Phebe, but she did not move. It was the voice of one long since dead that rang in her ears--dead, and faithfully mourned over; and every nerve tingled, and her heart seemed to stay its beating. Roland Sefton"s voice! She did not doubt it or mistake it. The call had been too real. She had answered to it too many times to be mistaken now. In those days of utter silence, when dumb signs only had pa.s.sed between her and her father, Roland"s pleasant voice had sounded too gladly in her ears ever to be forgotten or confounded with another.
But how could she hear it now? The voice of the dead! how could it reach her? A strange pang of mingled joy and terror paralyzed her. She sat motionless and bewildered, with a thrill of pa.s.sionate expectation quivering through her. Let Roland speak again; she could not answer his first call!
"Phebe!" She heard the cry again; but this time the voice was low, and lamentable, and despairing. For in the few seconds he had been standing, arrested on the threshold, the whole past had flitted through his brain in dismal procession. She lifted herself up slowly and mechanically from her low seat, and turned her face reluctantly towards the spot from which the startling call had come. In the dusky, red light stood the form of the one friend to whom she had been faithful with the utter faithfulness of her nature. Whence he came she knew not--she was afraid of knowing. But he was there, himself, and not another like him. There was a change, she could see that dimly; but not such a change as could disguise him from her. Of late, whilst she had been painting his portrait from memory, every recollection of him had been revived with keener vividness. Yet the terror of beholding him again on this side of death struck her dumb. She stretched out her hands towards him, but she could not speak.
"I must speak to Phebe Marlowe alone," said Jean Merle to Canon Pascal, and speaking in a tone of irresistible earnestness. "I have that to say to her which no one else can hear. She is G.o.d"s messenger to me."
"Shall I leave you with this stranger, Phebe?" asked Canon Pascal.
She made a gesture simply; her lips were too parched to open.
"My dear girl, I will stay, if you please," he said again.
"No," she breathed, in a voice scarcely audible.
"There is a bell close at your hand," he went on, "and I shall be within hearing of it. I will come myself if you ring it however faintly. You know this man?"
"Yes," she answered.
She saw him look across at her with an encouraging smile; and then the door was shut, and she was alone with her mysterious visitor.
CHAPTER XVII.
NO PLACE FOR REPENTANCE.
They stood silent for a few moments;--moments which seemed hours to Phebe. The stranger--for who could be so great a stranger as one who had been many years dead?--had advanced only a step or two from the threshold, and paused as if some invisible barrier was set up between them. She had shrunk back, and stood leaning against the wall for the support her trembling limbs needed. It was with a vehement effort that at last she spoke.
"Roland Sefton!" she faltered.
"Yes!" he answered, "I am that most miserable man."
"But you died," she said with quivering lips, "fourteen years ago."
"No, Phebe, no," he replied; "would to G.o.d I had died then."
Once more an agony of mingled fear and joy overwhelmed her. This dear voice, so lamentable and hopeless, so well remembered in all its tones, told her that he was still living, whom she had mourned over so many years. But what could this mystery mean? What had he pa.s.sed through?
What was about to happen now? A tumult of thoughts thronged to her brain. But clearest of all came the a.s.surance that he was alive, standing there, desolate, changed, and friendless. She ran to him and clasped his hands in hers; stooping down and kissing them, those hard worn hands, which he left unresistingly in her grasp. These loving, and deferential caresses belonged to the time when she was a humble country girl, and he the friend very far above her.
"Come closer to the fire, your hands are cold, Mr. Roland," she said, speaking in the old long-disused accent of her early days, as she might have spoken to him while she was yet a child. She threw a few logs on the fire, and drew up Canon Pascal"s chair to the hearth for him. She felt spell-bound; and as if she had been suddenly thrust back upon those old times.
"I am no longer Roland Sefton," he said, sinking down into the chair; "he died, as you say, many a long year ago. Do not light the lamp, Phebe; let us talk by the firelight."
The flicker of the flames creeping round the dry wood played upon his face, and her eyes were fastened on it. Could this man really be Roland Sefton, or was she being tricked by her fancy? Here was a scarred and wrinkled face, blistered and burnt by the summer"s sun, and cut and frost-bitten by the winter"s cold; the hair was gray and ragged, and the eyes far sunk in the head met her gaze with a despairing and uneasy glance, as if he shrank from her close scrutiny. His bowed shoulders and hands roughened by toil, and worn-out mechanic"s dress, were such a change, that perhaps, she acknowledged it reluctantly to herself, if he had not spoken as he did she might have pa.s.sed him by undiscovered.
"I am Jean Merle," he said, "not Roland Sefton."
"Jean Merle?" she repeated in a low, bewildered tone, "not Roland Sefton, but Jean Merle?"
But she could not be bewildered or in doubt much longer. This was Roland indeed, the hero of her life, come back to her a broken-down, desolate, and hopeless man. She knelt down on the hearth beside him, and laid her hand compa.s.sionately on his.
"But you are Roland himself to me!" she cried. "Oh! be quick, and tell me all about it. Why did we ever think you were dead?"
"It was best for them all," he answered. "G.o.d knows I believed it was best. But it was a second sin, worse than the first, Phebe. I did the man who died no wrong, for he told me as he lay dying that he had no friends to grieve for him, and no property to leave. All he wanted was a decent grave; and he has it, and my name with it. The grave at Engelberg contains a stranger. And I, Jean Merle, have taken charge of it."
"Oh!" cried Phebe, with a pang of dread, "how will Felicita bear it?"
"Felicita has known it; she consented to it," said Jean Merle. "If she had uttered one word against my desperate plan, I should have recoiled from it. To be dead whilst you are yet in the body; to have eyes to see and ears to hear with, and a thinking brain and a hungry heart, whilst there is no sign, or sound, or memory, or love from your former life; you cannot conceive what that is, Phebe. I was dead, yet I was too keenly alive in Jean Merle, the poor wood-carver and miser. They thought I was imbecile; and I was almost a madman. I could not tear myself away from the grave where Roland Sefton was buried; but oh! what I have suffered!"
He ended with a long shuddering sigh, which pierced Phebe to the heart.
The joy of seeing him again was vanishing in the sight of his suffering; but the thought uppermost in her mind was of Felicita.