Basil's Temptation (concluded)

[…] To human justice than mercy which she had a right to expect. Oh, it was pitiful, pitiful! For a long while no alternative course suggested itself to me.

Human justice! What is justice! See how it runs on! It can arrest, try, and, oh, horrible thought! perhaps condemn to death an innocent man. And then how would it fare with Philippa? Who, now that marriage has sealed my lips, was there to prove her madness, when she slew that man! I raged at the thought. It seemed to me that we were hard and fast in the toils. I might, it is true, call William, my servant, to swear that her manner was strange and wild upon that night. I might call the sisters to prove that when first they saw her she was recovering from an attack of mania. But would they be credited? Would not a clever lawyer soon convince twelve ordinary men that it was not her madness which caused the crime, but the crime which produced the madness? We were indeed enmeshed and bound; hemmed in on every side; helpless and, it seemed, hopeless!

And Philippa must be told this! I must tell her! How could I nerve myself to make that truth known to her now, of all times, when her health was all but restored; when a kind of sad but placid acquiescence in what fate had wrought seemed to be gradually coming over her; now, when I was once more building up hopes of happiness for her as well as for myself! For I dared to think of this, and pity me that before another half year should pass there might be given to my wife and me a gift which would go far toward sweeping away the memories of gloom and horror which had of late spread over our lives. I even dared to hope, to feel certain, that as she gazed into baby eyes, as she pressed a tiny head to her bosom, some, nay, much of the lost sweetness and glory of life might return to my love.

Think of this, and picture me lying on the ground that day, with the damning intelligence fresh on my mind! Think that in a few hours I must return to my home and tell my wife that the bolt had fallen! There was no alternative!

No alternative! Stay, there is an alternative! The blood seemed to course wildly through my veins, my heart beat fiercely, my lips grew dry, and a chilling sensation came over me, as for the first time the simple yet certain way of cutting the knot of my difficulties flashed across my mind. So simple, so easy it at first appeared, that I laughed at my stupidity in not having seen it at once.

Tear that accursed paper to pieces, Basil North! Scatter those pieces to the winds. Forget what you have read. Go back to your luxurious, flower-bedecked home. Meet the one you love with a smile — you have forced smiles before now! Greet her as usual. Say nothing of this morning's news. Keep your own counsel; bury all you have learned in your own heart. Do this, and be happy for ever more!

For the man — the man who in a few days' time is to be tried for another's guilt — what of him! The fool will doubtless be acquitted. Fool! Yes, it is a hard term for one who can bring himself under suspicion. But if justice runs on the wrong track until the end — if that man dies!

What then! What is this miserable life, what are a hundred lives, when weighed against Philippa's happiness! What is conscience! What is right and wrong! What is the phantom which men call honor! What, after all, is crime? Be silent, and forget. You are asked to do no more. You have riches, youth, health and strong will. The fairest woman on the earth adores you. Why hesitate! Why let one boor's life weigh in the scale!

Argued the arch tempter in another way, are not thousands of men slain every year by the whim of a monarch or a system, the thought of their death is nothing to those who sent them forth to fight. Men kill each other for revenge, for money, for a paltry point of honor, and the killer lives on like other men! Trust this man to the blindfold eyes of justice. He is innocent, and will come forth from the ordeal unscathed. If found guilty, let him die. He will not be the first innocent man who has died, nor will he be the last to die. It is but one life; think of him no more. Come what may, you will always have your name unstained, and the woman you love. Her children will grow up around you. A life's happiness is to be won by simply sealing your lips. Its cost is but this: one man's death. A paltry price!

This was the temptation with which I wrestled during those long hours. Again and again I was on the point of yielding.

Once or twice I rose to my feet with a fixed determination of destroying that paper, and letting things take their own course. Once or twice I even forced my steps some distance in the direction of home, but each time I turned, went back to the sheltered spot, threw myself again on the ground, and fought the battle anew.

No, I could not do this thing. I was a gentleman and a man of honor. Paltry as the price was when compared with what it might buy, I could not pay it. Although my whole soul was engaged in Philippa's welfare, I could not, even for her sake, suffer an innocent man to be done unjustly to death. The crime was too black, too base, too contemptible! I felt sure that, with the man's blood morally on my head, the supremest joys which life could give would not lull my conscience to rest. I knew it would not be long before remorse and shame drove me to commit suicide.

Let the preachers say that sin is easy: that wrong is more alluring than right. There may be some sins which are easily committed, but I dare to say that there are others which the average man, educated by the code of honor, and dreading shame and cowardice, finds it far easier to avoid than to bring himself to commit. No, every sin is not easy!

But all the same, my struggle was a mortal one. At times I fancy — it may be but fancy — that even now my mind bears some traces of that conflict; a conflict in which my victory meant ruin to all I loved best and dearest. Was I not right when I said that my temptation was an all but unparalleled one? Yet in reasserting this let me humbly disclaim all credit for not having yielded. I strove to yield, but could not.

It was only when I had conquered and put the temptation from me that I was able to see how utterly useless such a crime as that urged upon me would have been. Doubtless Philippa, sooner or later, would have learned that Sir Mervyn Ferrand's supposed murderer had paid the penalty of the crime. How would it have fared with us then, then, when reparation was placed out of the question? Knowing as I did every thought of my wife's, every turn of her impulsive, sensitive nature, I was fain to tell myself that such news would be simply her death blow.

But what was to be done! Finding that I could not compass the treachery which I dared to meditate, I cast about for another loophole of escape. What if I were to return to England and accuse myself of the crime? To insure Philippa's safety I would right willingly give away my own life. It shows the state to which my mind was reduced when I say that I considered this scheme in all its bearings, and for a while thought it furnished a solution to my difficulty! I wonder if my brain was wandering!

I laughed in bitter merriment as the absurdity of my new plan forced itself upon me. I had forgotten Philippa, and what the effect of such a sacrifice would be upon her. I had forgotten that she loved me, even as I loved her; that my dying for her sake — for the sake of saving her from the consequences of that grim, dark night — would make an operation, if it were hidden from her, the most fearful which human or diabolical ingenuity could devise.

No! Neither by sinning against my fellow man nor by a voluntary sacrifice of my own life could I save her. After all my protracted mental struggle, all my lonely hours of anguish and wild scheming, I was forced to return to the point from which I started. Philippa must surrender herself, and free this innocent man. There was, indeed, no alternative!

And a day gone, or all but gone! The trial on the 20th! To reach England — to reach Tewnham in time to stop that trial, we must travel day and night. Day and night across sunny or starlit Spain, across pleasant France we must speed on, until we reach our own native land, now lying in all the rich calm of the early autumn. I must lead my wife, my love, to her doom!

I rose from the ground. I felt weary, and as if I had been cudgeled in every limb. I dragged myself slowly back to my home. "She must be told; she must be told, but how to tell her?" I muttered as I went along. My appearance must have been wretched, for I received the impression that several grave-looking Sevillanos turned and looked after me as I passed by. Even as a cowardly felon who drags himself slowly to the scaffold I dragged myself to the gate of my pleasant home, and on tottering feet passed into that fragrant space in which the happiest hours of my life had been spent.

As I entered, the remembrance of some tale which once I had read rushed through my mind — a tale of the ferocity of a bygone age. It was of a prisoner who was forced by his captors to strike a dagger into the heart of the woman he loved. I know not where the tale is to be found, or where I read it.

But it seemed to me that mine was a parallel case.

Pity me!

CHAPTER XIII. THE LAST HOPE.

They were sitting in the courtyard, my mother and my wife. They looked the embodiment of serene happiness. Their jargon on the use of the fan came like an inspiration to Philippa; my mother acquired it after much practice. Her hands were swaying to and fro. Philippa's rounded arm was outstretched; her fair left hand was in the clear water which fell from the fountain and filled a white marble basin, in which the gold carp darted about in erratic tacks. She was moving her fingers gently backward and forward, startling the timid fish, and half smiling at their terror. It seemed to me that my mother was remonstrating at the uproar she was creating in the brilliant-coated republic.

That picture is still in my mind. That picture! I can sit now in my chair, lay down my pen, and call up every picture of that time. Nothing save the grief that is over, or ever will, fade from my memory.

It was well for both of us that I had fought out the battle with myself in solitude, where no eye could see me, where I could see no one. Even as it was, knowing what a change my news must work, I paused, and a ghost of the day's temptation rose before me. But it rose too late. The die was cast. Philippa had seen me, and my mother's eyes followed hers. I braced myself up and went towards them with as jaunty a manner as I could assume. My mother began a mock tirade on my shameful desertion of Philippa and herself. Her words carried no meaning to my ears. My eyes met those of my wife.

With her I made no attempt at concealment. Where was the good? The worst, the very worst, had come. My eyes must have told her the truth.

I saw her sweet face catch fire with alarm, I saw her lips quiver. I saw the look of anguish flash into her eyes — yet I knew that I was helpless, utterly helpless.

She rose. I made some conventional excuse and went to my room. In a moment Philippa was at my side.

"Basil, husband, love," she whispered, "..."

(Continued in next issue.)