"Not to me, but to the maid who was with her; her whole life and being
seemed to be gone over to you; and thus it was that the thought of
obeying her father's will killed her."
And I had been away from her all these years; I had been robbed of what
was most dear. I was glad I had been revenged on Wilfred now, and the
gladness was fiendish. This man, too, should reap as he had sown; as
he had helped to make me suffer I would make him suffer. I knew that
sooner or later my struggle with Wilfred would be made known, and that
I should be suspected of his death; but I did not care, madness was in
my heart again.
I burst forth with expressions of hatred and determinations of revenge,
the old man still cowering meanwhile before me. Then he spoke.
"Roger, who are you that you should seek revenge? Is your life wholly
pure and free from stain? Think, you, if you ruin my life by bringing
me to disgrace, or if you destroy your brother Wilfred, that Ruth could
welcome you to Heaven, if God should even allow you to go there? She
died with the look of a glorified angel on her face; I wish you had
seen her, you would not talk of revenge."
All the time I had been living as in a dream. A vague feeling of
darkness and revenge possessed me. I felt drawn on by unknown
influences--whither, I could not say.
These words of the old steward and friend to the Morton family aroused
me. Who was I, indeed, that I should seek revenge? I was the murderer
of my brother, I had yielded to as low impulses as they, and yet I
talked of myself as Nemesis. How, indeed, should I dare to meet Ruth
again with such a sin on my soul?
Without a word I left the house, Mr. Inch staring amazedly after me. I
strode down the drive towards the park gates, and had gone, perhaps,
half the distance, when I was chained to the earth by the memory of the
old man's words:--"She died with the look of a glorified angel on her
face; I wish you had seen her."
No sooner had these sounded in my memory than another voice seemed to
speak.
"Go and see her," it said. "Visit her tomb."
At first I was almost stunned by the thought. To see my Ruth again
would indeed be ecstasy, but even as I so thought I heard another voice
speaking in cruel mockery. That which I should see would not be Ruth,
she would be far away, where I might never go. Yet the idea still
haunted me. I would go. It might ease the terrible madness of my soul
if I could see even in death the lips that had confessed their love for
me.
How should I accomplish my object? I remembered Bill Tregargus's
words, "She was buried in the vault under the Communion." To the
church then I would go, and I would see her face again, although it was
the face of the dead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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