CHAPTER VI.
THE SADDEST OF ALL WORDS.
ON the tenth morning, dating from the dispatch of Father Benwell's last
letter to Rome, Penrose was writing in the study at Ten Acres Lodge,
while Romayne sat at the other end of the room, looking listlessly at a
blank sheet of paper, with the pen lying idle beside it. On a sudden
he rose, and, snatching up paper and pen, threw them irritably into the
fire.
"Don't trouble yourself to write any longer," he said to Penrose. "My
dream is over. Throw my manuscripts into the waste paper basket, and
never speak to me of literary work again."
"Every man devoted to literature has these fits of despondency," Penrose
answered. "Don't think of your work. Send for your horse, and trust to
fresh air and exercise to relieve your mind."
Romayne barely listened. He turned round at the fireplace and studied
the reflection of his face in the glass.
"I look worse and worse," he said thoughtfully to himself.
It was true. His flesh had fallen away; his face had withered and
whitened; he stooped like an old man. The change for the worse had been
steadily proceeding from the time when he left Vange Abbey.
"It's useless to conceal it from me!" he burst out, turning toward
Penrose. "I believe I am in some way answerable--though you all deny
it--for the French boy's death. Why not? His voice is still in my ears,
and the stain of his brother's blood is on me. I am under a spell! Do
you believe in the witches--the merciless old women who made wax images
of the people who injured them, and stuck pins in their mock likenesses,
to register the slow wasting away of their victims day after day? People
disbelieve it in these times, but it has never been disproved." He
stopped, looked at Penrose, and suddenly changed his tone. "Arthur!
what is the matter with you? Have you had a bad night? Has anything
happened?"
For the first time in Romayne's experience of him, Penrose answered
evasively.
"Is there nothing to make me anxious," he said, "when I hear you talk as
you are talking now? The poor French boy died of a fever. Must I remind
you again that he owed the happiest days of his life to you and your
good wife?"
Romayne still looked at him without attending to what he said.
"Surely you don't think I am deceiving you?" Penrose remonstrated.
"No; I was thinking of something else. I was wondering whether I really
know you as well as I thought I did. Am I mistaken in supposing that you
are not an ambitious man?"
"My only ambition is to lead a worthy life, and to be as useful to my
fellow-creatures as I can. Does that satisfy you?"
Romayne hesitated. "It seems strange--" he began.
"What seems strange?"
"I don't say it seems strange that you should be a priest," Romayne
explained. "I am only surprised that a man of your simple way of
thinking should have attached himself to the Order of the Jesuits."
"I can quite understand that," said Penrose. "But you should remember
that circumstances often influence a man in his choice of a vocation. It
has been so with me. I am a member of a Roman Catholic family. A Jesuit
College was near our place of abode, and a near relative of mine--since
dead--was one of the resident priests." He paused, and added in a lower
tone: "When I was little more than a lad I suffered a disappointment,
which altered my character for life. I took refuge in the College, and
I have found patience and peace of mind since that time. Oh, my friend,
you might have been a more contented man--" He stopped again. His
interest in the husband had all but deceived him into forgetting his
promise to the wife.
Romayne held out his hand. "I hope I have not thoughtlessly hurt you?"
he said.
Penrose took the offered hand, and pressed it fervently. He tried to
speak--and suddenly shuddered, like a man in pain. "I am not very well
this morning," he stammered; "a turn in the garden will do me good."
Romayne's doubts were confirmed by the manner in which Penrose left
him. Something had unquestionably happened, which his friend shrank from
communicating to him. He sat down again at his desk and tried to read.
The time passed--and he was still left alone. When the door was at last
opened it was only Stella who entered the room.
"Have you seen Penrose?" he asked.
The estrangement between them had been steadily widening of late.
Romayne had expressed his resentment at his wife's interference between
Penrose and himself by that air of contemptuous endurance which is
the hardest penalty that a man can inflict on the woman who loves him.
Stella had submitted with a proud and silent resignation--the most
unfortunate form of protest that she could have adopted toward a man
of Romayne's temper. When she now appeared, however, in her husband's
study, there was a change in her expression which he instantly noticed.
She looked at him with eyes softened by sorrow. Before she could answer
his first question, he hurriedly added another. "Is Penrose really ill?"
"No, Lewis. He is distressed."
"About what?"
"About you, and about himself."
"Is he going to leave us?"
"Yes."
"But he will come back again?"
Stella took a chair by her husband's side. "I am truly sorry for you,
Lewis," she said. "It is even a sad parting for Me. If you will let me
say it, I have a sincere regard for dear Mr. Penrose."
Under other circumstances, this confession of feeling for the man who
had sacrificed his dearest aspiration to the one consideration of her
happiness, might have provoked a sharp reply. But by this time Romayne
had really become alarmed. "You speak as if Arthur was going to leave
England," he said.
"He leaves England this afternoon," she answered, "for Rome."
"Why does he tell this to you, and not to me?" Romayne asked.
"He cannot trust himself to speak of it to you. He begged me to prepare
you--"
Her courage failed her. She paused. Romayne beat his hand impatiently on
the desk before him. "Speak out!" he cried. "If Rome is not the end of
the journey--what is?"
Stella hesitated no longer.
"He goes to Rome," she said "to receive his instructions, and to become
personally acquainted with the missionaries who are associated with him.
They will leave Leghorn in the next vessel which sets sail for a port
in Central America. And the dangerous duty intrusted to them is to
re-establish one of the Jesuit Missions destroyed by the savages years
since. They will find their church a ruin, and not a vestige left of the
house once inhabited by the murdered priests. It is not concealed from
them that they may be martyred, too. They are soldiers of the Cross; and
they go--willingly go--to save the souls of the Indians, at the peril of
their lives."
Romayne rose, and advanced to the door. There, he turned, and spoke to
Stella. "Where is Arthur?" he said.
Stella gently detained him.
"There was one word more he entreated me to say--pray wait and hear
it," she pleaded. "His one grief is at leaving You. Apart from that, he
devotes himself gladly to the dreadful service which claims him. He has
long looked forward to it, and has long prepared himself for it. Those,
Lewis, are his own words."
There was a knock at the door. The servant appeared, to announce that
the carriage was waiting.
Penrose entered the room as the man left it.
"Have you spoken for me?" he said to Stella. She could only answer him
by a gesture. He turned to Romayne with a faint smile.
"The saddest of all words must be spoken," he said. "Farewell!"
Pale and trembling, Romayne took his hand. "Is this Father Benwell's
doing?" he asked.
"No!" Penrose answered firmly. "In Father Benwell's position it might
have been his doing, but for his goodness to me. For the first time
since I have known him he has shrunk from a responsibility. For my sake
he has left it to Rome. And Rome has spoken. Oh, my more than friend--my
brother in love--!"
His voice failed him. With a resolution which was nothing less than
heroic in a man of his affectionate nature, he recovered his composure.
"Let us make it as little miserable as it _can_ be," he said. "At every
opportunity we will write to each other. And, who knows--I may yet come
back to you? God has preserved his servants in dangers as great as any
that I shall encounter. May that merciful God bless and protect you!
Oh, Romayne, what happy days we have had together!" His last powers of
resistance were worn out. Tears of noble sorrow dimmed the friendly
eyes which had never once looked unkindly on the brother of his love. He
kissed Romayne. "Help me out!" he said, turning blindly toward the hall,
in which the servant was waiting. That last act of mercy was not left
to a servant. With sisterly tenderness, Stella took his hand and led him
away. "I shall remember you gratefully as long as I live," she said to
him when the carriage door was closed. He waved his hand at the window,
and she saw him no more.
She returned to the study.
The relief of tears had not come to Romayne. He had dropped into a chair
when Penrose left him. In stony silence he sat there, his head down,
his eyes dry and staring. The miserable days of their estrangement were
forgotten by his wife in the moment when she looked at him. She knelt
by his side and lifted his head a little and laid it on her bosom. Her
heart was full--she let the caress plead for her silently. He felt it;
his cold fingers pressed her hand thankfully; but he said nothing. After
a long interval, the first outward expression of sorrow that fell from
his lips showed that he was still thinking of Penrose.
"Every blessing falls away from me," he said. "I have lost my best
friend."
Years afterward Stella remembered those words, and the tone in which he
had spoken them.