第30章

Hurlstone looked at him irresolutely for a moment and then said, with the hopeless desperation of a man anxious to anticipate his fate,--"I am a passenger on the ship you boarded yesterday.I came ashore with the intention of concealing myself somewhere here until she had sailed.When I tell you that I am not a fugitive from justice, that I have committed no offense against the ship or her passengers, nor have I any intention of doing so, but that I only wish concealment from their knowledge for twenty-four hours, you will know enough to understand that you run no risk in giving me assistance.I can tell you no more.""I did not see you with the other passengers, either on the ship or ashore," said the priest."How did you come here?""I swam ashore before they left.I did not know they had any idea of landing here; I expected to be the only one, and there would have been no need for concealment then.But I am not lucky," he added, with a bitter laugh.

The priest glanced at his garments, which bore the traces of the sea, but remained silent.

"Do you think I am lying?"

The old priest lifted his head with a gesture.

"Not to me--but to God!"

The young man followed the gesture, and glanced around the barbaric church with a slight look of scorn.But the profound isolation, the mystic seclusion, and, above all, the complete obliteration of that world and civilization he shrank from and despised, again subdued and overcame his rebellious spirit.He lifted his eyes to the priest.

"Nor to God," he said gravely.

"Then why withhold anything from Him here?" said the priest gently.

"I am not a Catholic--I do not believe in confession," said Hurlstone doggedly, turning aside.

But Padre Esteban laid his large brown hand on the young man's shoulder.Touched by some occult suggestion in its soft contact, he sank again into his seat.

"Yet you ask for the sanctuary of His house--a sanctuary bought by that contrition whose first expression is the bared and open soul!

To the first worldly shelter you sought--the peon's hut or the Alcalde's casa--you would have thought it necessary to bring a story.You would not conceal from the physician whom you asked for balsam either the wound, the symptoms, or the cause? Enough," he said kindly, as Hurlstone was about to reply."You shall have your request.You shall stay here.I will be your physician, and will salve your wounds; if any poison I know not of rankle there, you will not blame me, son, but perhaps you will assist me to find it.

I will give you a secluded cell in the dormitory until the ship has sailed.And then"--He dropped quietly on the settle, took the young man's hand paternally in his own, and gazed into his eyes as if he read his soul.

And then...Ah, yes...What then? Hurlstone glanced once more around him.He thought of the quiet night; of the great peace that had fallen upon him since he had entered the garden, and the promise of a greater peace that seemed to breathe with the incense from those venerable walls.He thought of that crumbling barrier, that even in its ruin seemed to shut out, more completely than anything he had conceived, his bitter past, and the bitter world that recalled it.He thought of the long days to come, when, forgetting and forgotten, he might find a new life among these simple aliens, themselves forgotten by the world.He had thought of this once before in the garden; it occurred to him again in this Lethe-like oblivion of the little church, in the kindly pressure of the priest's hand.The ornaments no longer looked uncouth and barbaric--rather they seemed full of some new spiritual significance.He suddenly lifted his eyes to Padre Esteban, and, half rising to his feet, said,--"Are we alone?"

"We are; it is a half-hour yet before mass," said the priest.

"My story will not last so long," said the young man hurriedly, as if fearing to change his mind."Hear me, then--it is no crime nor offense to any one; more than that, it concerns no one but myself--it is of"--

"A woman," said the priest softly."So! we will sit down, my son."He lifted his hand with a soothing gesture--the movement of a physician who has just arrived at an easy diagnosis of certain uneasy symptoms.There was also a slight suggestion of an habitual toleration, as if even the seclusion of Todos Santos had not been entirely free from the invasion of the primal passion.

Hurlstone waited for an instant, but then went on rapidly.

"It is of a woman, who has cursed my life, blasted my prospects, and ruined my youth; a woman who gained my early affection only to blight and wither it; a woman who should be nearer to me and dearer than all else, and yet who is further than the uttermost depths of hell from me in sympathy or feeling; a woman that I should cleave to, but from whom I have been flying, ready to face shame, disgrace, oblivion, even that death which alone can part us: for that woman is--my wife."He stopped, out of breath, with fixed eyes and a rigid mouth.

Father Esteban drew a snuff-box from his pocket, and a large handkerchief.After blowing his nose violently, he took a pinch of snuff, wiped his lip, and replaced the box.