When It Was Dark Part 55

But the agony within him was the agony of _contrast_.

The great fires round his soul had burnt his l.u.s.t away. There was no more regret or longing for the evil past. All the joys of a sensual life seemed as if they had never been. Now, the pain was the pain of a man, not who knows the worst too soon, but who knows the best too late!

A vivid picture, a succession of thoughts following each other with such kinetic swiftness that they became welded in one single picture, as one may see a vast landscape of wood and torrent, champaign and forest, in one flash of the storm sword, came to him now.

And, at the last, he saw himself seated at a great table in a n.o.ble room. There were soft lights. Silver and flowers were there. Round the board sat many men and women. On their faces was the calm triumph of those who had succeeded in a fine battle, won an intellectual strife.

The faces were calm, powerful, serene. They were the salt of society. He saw his own face in a little mirror set among the flowers. His face was even as their faces. Self-reverence had dignified it, self-knowledge and self-control had turned the lines to kindly marble, defiant of time.

At the other end of the table sat a calm and gracious lady, richly dressed in some glowing sombre stuff. She was the grave and loving matron who slept by his side.

Full of honour, full of the glorious satisfaction of a great work well done, a life lived well; hand in hand, a n.o.ble and notable pair, they were making their fine progress together.

"I am waiting, Robert, dear!"

Then he knew that he must speak. In rapid words, which seemed to come from a vast distance, he confessed it all.

He told her how Schuabe had tempted him with a vast fortune, how he was already in his power when the temptation had come. How his evil desires had so gripped him, his life of sin had become like air itself to him.

He told of the secret visit to Palestine and the forgery which had stirred the world.

As he spoke, he felt, in some subtle way, that the life and warmth were dying out of the arms which were round him.

The electric current of devotion which had been flowing from this lady seemed to flicker and die away.

The awful story was ended at last.

Then with a face in which the horror came out in waves, inexpressibly terrible to see, with each beat of the pulses a wave of unutterable horror, she slowly rose.

Her arms fell heavily to her sides, all her motions became automatic, jerky.

Slowly, slowly, she turned.

Her feet made no noise as she moved over the room. Her garments did not rustle. But she walked, not as an elderly woman, but a very old woman.

The door clicked softly. He was left alone in the comfortable room.

Alone.

He stood up, tottered a few steps in the direction she had gone, and then, with a resounding crash which shook the furniture in a succession of quick rattles, his great form fell p.r.o.ne upon the floor.

He lay there, head downwards, with the suns.h.i.+ne pouring on him, still and without any reactionary movement.

The afternoon was begun. London was as it had been for days. The uneasiness and unrest which were now become the common incubus of its inhabitants neither grew nor lessened.

The afternoon papers were merely repet.i.tions of former days. Great financial houses were tottering, rumours of wars were growing every hour, no country was at rest, no colony secure. Over the world lawlessness and rapine were holding horrid revel.

But, and long afterwards, this fact was noticed and commented on by the historians: on this especial winter's afternoon there was no ultra-alarming shock, speaking comparatively, to the general state of things.

In the pale winter suns.h.i.+ne men moved heavily about their business, the common burden was shared by all, but there was no loud trumpet note during those hours.

About four o'clock some carriages drove to Downing Street. In one sat Sir Michael Manichoe, Father Ripon, Harold Spence, and Basil Gortre.

In another was the English Consul at Jerusalem, who had arrived with Spence from the Holy City, Dr. Schmoulder from Berlin, and the Duke of Suffolk.

The carriages stopped at the house of the Prime Minister and the party entered.

Nothing occurred, visibly, for an hour, though urgent messages were pa.s.sing over the telephone wires.

In an hour's time a cab came driving furiously down the Embankment, round by the new Scotland Yard and St. Stephen's Club, into Parliament Street.

The cab contained the Editor of the _Times_. Following his arrival, in a few seconds, a number of other cabs drove up, all at a fast pace. Each one contained a prominent journalist. Ommaney was among the first to arrive, and Folliott Farmer was with him.

It was nearly an hour when these people left Downing Street, all with very grave faces.

A few minutes after their departure Sir Michael and his party came out, accompanied by several ministers, including the Home Secretary and the Chief Commissioner of Police.

Though the distance to Scotland Yard is only a few hundred yards, the latter gentleman jumped into a pa.s.sing hansom and was driven rapidly to his office.

This brings the time up to about six o'clock.

It was quite dark in Sir Robert's room. A faint yellow flicker came through the window, which was not curtained, from a gas lamp in the street. A dull and distant murmur from the Edgeware Road could be dimly heard, otherwise the room was quite silent.

Llwellyn did not lie where he had fallen. His swoon had lasted long and no one had come to succour him. But the end was not just yet. The merciful oblivion of pa.s.sing from a swoon into death was denied him.

He had come to his senses late in the afternoon, about the time that the large party of people had emerged on foot and in carriages from the narrow _cul-de-sac_ of Downing Street.

He had felt very cold, an icy-cold. There had come a terrible moment.

The physical sensation was swamped and forgotten in one frightful flash of realisation. He was alone, the end was at hand.

Alone.

Instinctively he had tried to rise. He was lying face downwards at the return of sensation. His legs would not answer the message of his brain when he tried to move them so that he might rise. They lay like long dead cylinders behind him. He was able to drag himself very slowly, for a yard or two, until he reached an ottoman. He could not lift the vast weight of his body into the seat. It was utterly beyond his strength. He propped his trunk against the seat. It was all he was able to accomplish. Icy-cold sweat ran down his cheeks at the exertion. After he had finished moving he found that all strength had left him.

He was paralysed from the waist downwards. The rest of his body was too weak to move him.

Only his brain was working with a terrible activity, there alone in the chill dark.

There came into his molten brain the impulse to pray. Deep down in every human heart that impulse lies.

It is a seed planted there by G.o.d that it may grow into the tree of salvation.

The effort was sub-conscious. Almost simultaneously with it came the awful remembrance of what he had done.

A name danced in letters of flame in his brain--JUDAS.