Part 24 (1/2)

'And you will take charge of a letter? Perhaps, too, you could see him yourself; and tell him--you see I trust you with everything-- that my fortune, his own fortune, depends on his being here to- morrow morning. He must start to-night, sir--to-night, tell him, if there were twenty Miss Lavingtons in Whitford--or he is a ruined man!'

The letter was written, and put into the vicar's hands, with a hundred entreaties from the terrified banker. A cab was called, and the clergyman rattled off to the railway terminus.

'Well,' said he to himself, 'G.o.d has indeed blessed my errand; giving, as always, ”exceeding abundantly more than we are able to ask or think!” For some weeks, at least, this poor lamb is safe from the destroyer's clutches. I must improve to the utmost those few precious days in strengthening her in her holy purpose. But, after all, he will return, daring and cunning as ever; and then will not the fascination recommence?'

And, as he mused, a little fiend pa.s.sed by, and whispered, 'Unless he comes up to-night, he is a ruined man.'

It was Friday, and the vicar had thought it a fit preparation for so important an errand to taste no food that day. Weakness and hunger, joined to the roar and bustle of London, had made him excited, nervous, unable to control his thoughts, or fight against a stupifying headache; and his self-weakened will punished him, by yielding him up an easy prey to his own fancies.

'Ay,' he thought, 'if he were ruined, after all, it would be well for G.o.d's cause. The Lavingtons, at least, would find no temptation in his wealth: and Argemone--she is too proud, too luxurious, to marry a beggar. She might embrace a holy poverty for the sake of her own soul; but for the gratification of an earthly pa.s.sion, never! Base and carnal delights would never tempt her so far.'

Alas, poor pedant! Among all that thy books taught thee, they did not open to thee much of the depths of that human heart which thy dogmas taught thee to despise as diabolic.

Again the little fiend whispered,--

'Unless he comes up to-night, he is a ruined man.'

'And what if he is?' thought the vicar. 'Riches are a curse; and poverty a blessing. Is it not his wealth which is ruining his soul?

Idleness and fulness of bread have made him what he is--a luxurious and self-willed dreamer, battening on his own fancies. Were it not rather a boon to him to take from him the root of all evil?'

Most true, vicar. And yet the devil was at that moment transforming himself into an angel of light for thee.

But the vicar was yet honest. If he had thought that by cutting off his right hand he could have saved Lancelot's soul (by canonical methods, of course; for who would wish to save souls in any other?), he would have done it without hesitation.

Again the little fiend whispered,--

'Unless he comes up to-night he is a ruined man.'

A terrible sensation seized him.--Why should he give the letter to- night?

'You promised,' whispered the inner voice.

'No, I did not promise exactly, in so many words; that is, I only said I would be at home to-night, if G.o.d pleased. And what if G.o.d should not please?--I promised for his good. What if, on second thoughts, it should be better for him not to keep my promise?' A moment afterwards, he tossed the temptation from him indignantly: but back it came. At every gaudy shop, at every smoke-grimed manufactory, at the face of every anxious victim of Mammon, of every st.u.r.dy, cheerful artisan, the fiend winked and pointed, crying, 'And what if he be ruined? Look at the thousands who have, and are miserable--at the millions who have not, and are no sadder than their own tyrants.'

Again and again he thrust the thought from him, but more and more weakly. His whole frame shook; the perspiration stood on his forehead. As he took his railway ticket, his look was so haggard and painful that the clerk asked him whether he were ill. The train was just starting; he threw himself into a carriage--he would have locked himself in if he could; and felt an inexpressible relief when he found himself rus.h.i.+ng past houses and market-gardens, whirled onward, whether he would or not, in the right path--homeward.

But was it the right path? for again the temptation flitted past him. He threw himself back, and tried to ask counsel of One above; but there was no answer, nor any that regarded. His heart was silent, and dark as midnight fog. Why should there have been an answer? He had not listened to the voice within. Did he wish for a miracle to show him his duty?

'Not that I care for detection,' he said to himself. 'What is shame to me? Is it not a glory to be evil-spoken of in the cause of G.o.d?

How can the world appreciate the motives of those who are not of the world?--the divine wisdom of the serpent--at once the saint's peculiar weapon, and a part of his peculiar cross, when men call him a deceiver, because they confound, forsooth, his spiritual subtlety with their earthly cunning. Have I not been called ”liar,”

”hypocrite,” ”Jesuit,” often enough already, to harden me towards bearing that name once again?'

That led him into sad thoughts of his last few years' career,--of the friends and pupils whose secession to Rome had been attributed to his hypocrisy, his 'disguised Romanism;' and then the remembrance of poor Luke Smith flashed across him for the first time since he left the bank.

'I must see him,' he said to himself; 'I must argue with him face to face. Who knows but that it may be given even to my unworthiness to s.n.a.t.c.h him from this accursed slough?'

And then he remembered that his way home lay through the city in which the new convert's parish was--that the coach stopped there to change horses; and again the temptation leapt up again, stronger than ever, under the garb of an imperative call of duty.

He made no determination for or against it. He was too weak in body and mind to resist; and in a half sleep, broken with an aching, terrified sense of something wanting which he could not find, he was swept down the line, got on the coach, and mechanically, almost without knowing it, found himself set down at the city of A--, and the coach rattling away down the street.

He sprang from his stupor, and called madly after it--ran a few steps--