Peccavi. Hornung Ernest William

and supported himself with one hand while he stretched the other across his desk. Carlton took it in confusion. He had expected that shut mouth and piercing glance, but not this kindly grasp. He was invited to sit down. The man who complied was the ghost of the Rector of Long Stow, as his spiritual overseer remembered him. His whole face was as white as his forehead had been on the day of the fire. It carried more than one still whiter scar. Yet in the eyes there burnt, brighter than ever, those fires of zeal and of enthusiasm which had warmed the bishop's heart in the past, but which somewhat puzzled him now.

      "I am sorry," said his lordship, "that you should have such weather for what, I am sure, must have been an undertaking for you, Mr. Carlton. You still look far from strong. Before we begin, is there nothing – "

      Carlton could hear no more. There was nothing at all. He was quite himself again. And he spoke with some coolness; for the other's manner, despite his mouth and his eyes, was almost cruel in its unexpected and undue consideration. It was less than ever this man's intention to play upon the pity of high or low. He had an appeal to make before he went, but it was not an appeal for pity. Meanwhile his back stiffened and his chest filled in the intensity of his desire not to look the invalid.

      "In that case," resumed the bishop, "I am glad that you have seen your way to keeping the appointment I suggested. In cases of complaint – more especially a complaint of the grave character indicated in my letter – I make it a rule to see the person complained of before taking further steps. That is to say, if he will see me; and I don't think you will regret having done so, Mr. Carlton. It may give you pain – "

      Carlton jerked his hands.

      "But you shall have fair play!"

      And his lordship looked point-blank at the bearded man, as he had looked in his day on many a younger culprit; and his voice was the peculiar voice that generations of schoolboys had set themselves to imitate, with less success than they supposed.

      Carlton bowed acknowledgment of this promise.

      "In the questions which I feel compelled to put" – and the bishop glanced at his sheet of foolscap – "you will perhaps give me credit for studying your feelings as far as is possible in the painful circumstances. I shall try not to leave them more painful than I find them, Mr. Carlton. But the complaint received is a very serious one, and it is not made by one person; it has very many signatures; and it necessitates plain speaking. It is a fact, then, that you are the father of an illegitimate child born on the twentieth of last month in your own parish?"

      "It is a fact, my lord."

      "And the woman is dead?"

      "The young girl – is dead."

      The bishop's pen had begun the descent of the clean part of his page of foolscap; when the last answer was inscribed, the writer looked up, neither in astonishment nor in horror, but with the clear eye and the serene brow of the ideal judge.

      "Of course," said he, "I am informed that you have already made the admission. Let there be no affectation or misunderstanding between us, on that or any other point. But as your bishop, and at least hitherto your friend, I desire to have refutation or confirmation from your own lips. You are at perfect liberty to deny me either. It will make no difference to the ultimate result. That, as you know, will be out of my hands."

      "I desire to withhold nothing, my lord," said Robert Carlton in a firm voice.

      "Very well. I think we understand each other. This poor young woman, I gather, was the daughter of a prominent parishioner?"

      "Of a prominent resident in my parish – yes."

      "But she herself was conspicuous in parochial work? Is it a fact that she played the organ in church?"

      "It is."

      The fact was noted, the pen laid down; and the little old man, who looked only great across his desk, leant back in his chair.

      "I am exceedingly anxious that you should have fair play. Let me say plainly that these are not my first inquiries into the matter. I am informed – I wish to know with what truth – that the young woman disappeared for several months before her death?"

      "It is quite true."

      "And returned to give birth to her child?"

      "And to die!" said Carlton, in his grim determination neither to shield nor to spare himself in any of his answers. But his hands were clenched, and his white face glistened with his pain.

      The bishop watched him with an eye grown mild with understanding, and a heart hot with mercy for the man who had no mercy on himself. But the tight mouth never relaxed, and the peculiar voice was unaltered when it broke the silence. It was the voice of justice, neither kind nor unkind, severe nor lenient, only grave, deliberate, matter-of-fact.

      "My next question is dictated by information received, or let me say by suspicions communicated. It is a vital question; do not answer unless you like. It is, however, a question that will infallibly arise elsewhere. Were you, or were you not, privy to this poor young woman's disappearance?"

      "Before God, my lord, I was not!"

      "I understand that her parents had no idea where she was until the very end. Had you none either?"

      "No more than they had. We were equally in the dark. We believed that she had gone to stay with a friend from the village – a young woman who had married from service, and was settled near London. It was several weeks before we discovered that her friend had never seen her."

      "And all this time you did not suspect her condition?"

      "Yes; then I did; but not before."

      "She made no communication before she went away?"

      "None whatever to me – none whatever, to my knowledge."

      "And this was early in the year?"

      "She left Long Stow in January, and we had no news of her till the middle of June, when strangers communicated with her father."

      Again the bishop leant over his foolscap.

      "Did you ever offer her marriage?" he asked abruptly.

      "Repeatedly!"

      The clear eyes looked up.

      "Did you not tell her father this?"

      "No; I couldn't condescend to tell him," said Carlton, flushing for the first time. "My lord, I have made no excuses. There are none to make. That was none at all."

      His lordship regarded the changed face with no further change in his own.

      "So you loved her," he said softly, after a pause.

      "Ah! if only I had loved her more!"

      "If excuse there could be.. love.. is some."

      It was the old man murmuring, as old men will, all unknown to the bishop and the judge.

      "But I want no excuses!" cried Carlton, wildly. "And let me be honest now, whatever I have been in the past; if I deceived myself and others, let me undeceive myself and you! Oh, my lord, that wasn't love! It's the bitterest thought of all, the most shameful confession of all. But love must be something better; that can't be love! It was passion, if you like; it was a passion that swept me away in the pride of my strength; but, God forgive me, it was not love!"

      He hid his face in his writhing hands; and, with those wild eyes off him, the bishop could no longer swallow his compassion. The lines of his mouth relaxed, and lo, the mouth was beautiful. A tender light suffused the aged face, and behold, the face was gentle beyond belief.

      "Love is everything," the old man said; "but even passion is something, in these cold days of little lives and little sins. And honesty like yours is a great deal, Robert Carlton, though your sin be as scarlet, and the Blood of our Blessed Lord alone can make you clean."

      Carlton looked up swiftly, a new solicitude in his eyes.

      "In me it was scarlet: not in her. She loved.. she loved. Oh, to have loved as well – to have that to remember!.. She thought it would spoil my life; and I never guessed it was that! But now I know, I know! It was for my sake she went away.. poor child.. poor mistaken heroine! She died for me,