The Day of Judgment Part 73

He knew nothing of the heart-pangs of others; nothing of great determinations which alternated with wild despair; nothing of agonised prayers, of sleepless nights, and of vain endeavours to prove his innocence. He was a condemned man, alone in a condemned cell, waiting for the last hour. For the first few hours after the final words had been spoken he had a sort of gruesome pleasure in thinking of the future. He fancied that some few days would elapse, during which his case would be considered by the Home Secretary; and then this highly-placed official, having no reason for showing him any special mercy, would go through the formula necessary to his death. Then would come the erecting of the scaffold, the symbol of disgrace and shame.

What the cross had been to the old Romans the scaffold was to the modern Englishman. After that, under the grey, murky sky, he would be led out, and the dread formula would be gone through. He would be asked whether he had anything to say before the fatal act was committed, after which the hangman would do his work.

Well, well, he would go through that as he had gone through all the rest. It was a ghastly tragedy, a grim mockery, but he would bear it like a stoic.

Presently, however, his feelings underwent a change. Memories of his early days came back to him--his life in the workhouse, his schooldays, when he took his place among the rest of the pauper boys, the learning of a trade, and his work in the mine. Always his life had been overhung with shadow, and yet he had enjoyed it. He had found pleasure in fighting with difficulty, in overcoming what seemed insuperable obstacles. He remembered the visits of the minister of Hanover Chapel, and of what he had said to him. Yes, the incipient atheism of his boyhood had become more p.r.o.nounced as the years went by. His unbelief had become more settled, and yet, and yet----

He called to mind the hour he had first seen Mary. How wonderful she had been to him. She had brought something new, something n.o.bler into his life. How, in spite of his anger, he had loved her! Ay, and he loved her still. He thought of his dream of going into Parliament, of fighting for the rights of the working people of the town in which he lived and for the cla.s.s to which he had belonged. Yes, above and beyond his ambition to be a noted man he had a great consuming desire to do something for the betterment of the condition of the people whom he loved, a great pa.s.sion to advance their rights. And, to a degree, he had done it. Brunford was the better, and not the worse, because he had lived. If it had been his fate to live, he would have continued to work for the toiling ma.s.ses of the people. He thought of the dreams which had been born in his brain and heart, and which he hoped to translate into reality; of the Bills he had framed, and which he had meant one day to bring before Parliament, Bills which he had hoped would become Acts, and which would have a beneficent influence on the life of the nation.

But this was all over now. The end of all things had come. His doom had been p.r.o.nounced. What a ghastly mockery life was--and men talked about G.o.d! He, an innocent man, was about to end his days in the most shameful way imaginable because he had been found guilty of a crime of which he knew nothing. But at least he had saved his mother. There was something in that. No shadow of shame or disgrace rested upon her name. Whether her days were many or few, nothing evil could be a.s.sociated with the life of his mother. How it all flashed back to him. That night in the cell, when she had told him her story, told him that the man who had sat in judgment upon him was his father and her husband! Then came that great day in the court, when Judge Bolitho had made his confession. How still people were. The court was almost as silent as the cell in which he now lay. After all, his father could not have been a villain. It is true he had steeled his heart against him even after that confession. Had he been right? He remembered the visit of Judge Bolitho on the evening of his confession; how he had pleaded with him; how he had sought his love. It is true he would explain nothing of the mysteries which he, Paul, desired to learn. He was dumb when he had questioned him concerning the shame in which Mary's name lay. Nevertheless he had to confess in his heart that his father had tried to do his duty by him and his mother.

He recalled the words which he had spoken to the chaplain who had visited him one day. He had told this man that if his father would confess his evil deeds and seek to make atonement, he might believe in G.o.d, in Providence. It was a poor thing to say after all. G.o.d, if there was a G.o.d, must not be judged by poor little paltry standards.

The G.o.d Who made all the worlds, who controlled the infinite universe, Who was behind all things, before all things, in all things, through all things--that G.o.d must have ways beyond his poor little comprehension. But was there such a Being? Or was everything the result of a blind fate, a great mysterious something which was unknown and unknowable, a force that had no feeling, no thought, no care for the creatures who crawled upon the face of this tiny world?

Then the great Future stared him in the face. Was this life the end and the end-all? Could it be that he, who could think and feel, who had such infinite hope and longings and yearnings, would die when he left the body? After all, was not Epictetus, the old Greek slave, right when he said that the body was only something which he carried around with him, and that his soul was something eternal which the world could never touch. If that were so, there must be a great spiritual realm into which he had never entered.

He thought of the opening words of the Old Testament: "In the beginning G.o.d----" It was one of the most majestic sentences in the literature of the world, sublime, almost infinite in its grandeur. Then he remembered the words of Jesus. Years had pa.s.sed since he had given attention to these things, yet the memory of the words he had learnt as a boy was with him now. What a wonderful story it was! What a Life, too! The mind of Jesus had pierced the night like stars. He had torn to pieces the flimsy sophistries of the age in which He had lived, and looked into the very heart of things. What a great compa.s.sion He had for the poor, how tender He was to the sinning. Yes, He understood, He understood. And what a death He had died, too. He might have escaped death, but He had died believing that by dying He would enrich, glorify the life of the world. In a sense it was illogical, but there was a deeper logic which he eventually saw. After all, it was the death of Jesus that made Him live in the minds and hearts of untold millions during nineteen centuries. According to the standards of man, His death was unjust, and He knew it to be unjust, but He never flinched or faltered. "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do," He had said when the ignorant rabble had railed at Him. "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit," He had said, and then gave up the ghost.

It was wonderful!

In that hour Paul Stepaside realised that he had been less than an infant crying for the light, and with no language but a cry. He had shut out the light by a poor little conceit of his own. He had dared to judge life by paltry little standards. He had dared to say what was and what was not--he! He knew less than nothing!

After all, that which had embittered him more than anything else, that which he said had robbed him of his faith--even in that he had been proved to be wrong. It was a great thing his father had done. Of course he had sinned, of course his life had been unworthy. His treatment of his mother was the act of a dastardly coward--the base betrayal, the long absence, the marrying another woman--oh! it was all poor and mean and contemptible! Nothing but a coward, ay, a villain, could have done it. And yet there was something n.o.ble in his atonement. Of course sin must be followed by suffering and by h.e.l.l.

He saw that plain enough. He saw, too, that not only the sinner suffered, but others suffered. Yet who was he to judge? His father--a proud man, proud of his family name, proud of the position he had obtained, one of the highest in the realm of law--had, in face of a crowd hungry for sensation, eager to fasten upon any garbage of gossip which might come in its way, confessed the truth, even although that truth had made his name the subject of gossip for millions of tongues.

Yes; there was something n.o.ble in it, and Paul felt his heart soften as he thought and remembered. Whatever else it had done, it had made his own fate easier to bear.

He thought of the look on Judge Bolitho's face as he came to his cell on the day of the confession, remembered the pleading tones: "Paul, my son, I want your forgiveness, your love."

Perhaps it was because his heart was so weighed down with grief, and his life was unutterably lonely, that he cried out like one whose life was filled with a great yearning: "Father, father!"

He heard a sound at the door of the cell. The warder entered, followed by the form of a woman. His heart gave a great bound.

"Mary!" he cried.

He had not expected this. It had become a sort of settled conviction in his mind that he would have to die alone and uncomforted. He had a vague idea that people would be allowed to see him, but no definite hopes had ever come into his mind. Perhaps he had wondered why he had been left so long alone, but he had never doubted Mary's love.

Regardless of the fact that the warder stood there, the man who, as it seemed to him, was coa.r.s.e and almost brutal, watching his every action, listening to his every word, he threw open his arms: "Mary, my love!"

A minute later she was sobbing out her grief on his shoulder.

"I wanted to come before, Paul," she said; "but father did not think it best."

"No, no; I understand. Oh, Mary, it's heaven to me to see you, to hear you speak, to hold you like this; but I almost wish you had not come.

Why should you suffer?"

"I have come, Paul, because I could not help it, and because---- Oh, I want to tell you something. Must this man stay?"

"Can you not go and leave us alone?" said Paul to the man.

The warder shook his head. "Against rules!"

"But surely you need not listen to what--to what--my--that is, this young lady has to say to me."

The man did not speak. Perhaps he had some glimmering of understanding, perhaps he realised the position better than they thought.

"Whisper it, Mary," said Paul, still holding her to his heart.

"Paul, you are innocent."

"Yes," he said. "I am innocent. I fought for my life as hard as I could; but law is not justice, Mary. It's a huge legal machine."

"And Paul," she whispered, "you have believed all along that someone else was guilty. You have believed it was your mother."

She felt him shudder as she spoke the words.

"_I_ believed it, too. It came to me one day that you were trying to shield her, and that was why you have allowed yourself to be here. You could have cleared yourself else, couldn't you?"

She knew by the deep sigh that escaped him how her words moved him.

"On the day when my father made that confession," she went on, "I found out where your mother was, and went to see her. I had made up my mind to obtain a confession of guilt from her. Oh, Paul, it's terribly hard to tell you this, and I know that you'll hardly be able to forgive me; but it was all for you! You believe that, don't you?"

"Go on, Mary. Tell me what it is."

"I went back to Brunford with her. You see she knew who I was by this time, and I think she liked me. She said she was ill and was afraid to stay in Manchester any longer, and she asked me to go back to Brunford with her."

"Yes, and you did, Mary."

"Yes, I did. And then I begged her to tell me the truth. I made her see who I suspected."

"Yes, and then----" he whispered.

"I don't know what it was, whether it was the shock of my words, or whether it was because she could no longer stand the strain she had been suffering, but her senses forsook her, and--oh, Paul! forgive me--but she's been ill ever since. She's had no knowledge of anything that's been going on."

He was silent a moment, then he said: "It's best so, Mary. If she does not know she cannot suffer, and no shame can attach to her name now."

"No, Paul; but I haven't told you all yet. It wasn't she who did it!

She was as ignorant of the crime as I was!"

"How? Tell me!" he almost gasped.

She related the story of what took place between her father and the man Archie Fearn, while he, with hoa.r.s.e whispers, besieged her with questions.

"Thank G.o.d!" he said at length. It seemed as though a great burden had gone from his life, and as though the only way in which he could express his feelings was by thanking the Being in Whom he had said he had no belief.

"Paul, could you have saved yourself if you had known this?"

"I don't know," he replied. "I might--that is--no, I don't know. I went out that night to seek her, Mary. When I had told her of my quarrel with Wilson, you remember, on the night of the murder, she acted as though she were mad. She promised me I should be revenged, that I should have justice. She said things which, when I began to think about them afterwards, made me afraid. I thought she had gone to bed, and I sat in my study for hours, alone, thinking and wondering.

Then, when I went to her room to bid her good night, I found she was gone, and I went out to seek her. Undoubtedly it was a senseless thing to do, because I had no knowledge of the direction in which she had gone. She had, however, uttered one sentence which guided me: 'I am going to Howden Clough,' she said. 'It's near there I shall see him.'"

For a long time they spoke in whispers, the warder standing as far away from them as possible, and seemingly taking no notice.