Chapter XXXII.

The Absolution.

This is what had taken place: We have seen that it was not of his own

free will, but, on the contrary, very reluctantly, that the monk

attended the wounded man who had been recommended to him in so strange

a manner. Perhaps he would have sought to escape by flight had he seen

any possibility of doing so. He was restrained by the threats of the

two gentlemen and by the presence of their attendants, who doubtless

had received their instructions. And besides, he considered it most

expedient, without exhibiting too much ill-will, to follow to the end

his rôle as confessor.

The monk entered the chamber and approached the bed of the wounded man.

The executioner searched his face with the quick glance peculiar to

those who are about to die and have no time to lose. He made a movement

of surprise and said:

“Father, you are very young.”

“Men who bear my robe have no age,” replied the monk, dryly.

“Alas, speak to me more gently, father; in my last moments I need a

friend.”

“Do you suffer much?” asked the monk.

“Yes, but in my soul much more than in my body.”

“We will save your soul,” said the young man; “but are you really the

executioner of Bethune, as these people say?”

“That is to say,” eagerly replied the wounded man, who doubtless feared

that the name of executioner would take from him the last help that he

could claim—“that is to say, I was, but am no longer; it is fifteen

years since I gave up the office. I still assist at executions, but no

longer strike the blow myself—no, indeed.”

“You have, then, a repugnance to your profession?”

“So long as I struck in the name of the law and of justice my

profession allowed me to sleep quietly, sheltered as I was by justice

and law; but since that terrible night when I became an instrument of

private vengeance and when with personal hatred I raised the sword over

one of God’s creatures—since that day——”

The executioner paused and shook his head with an expression of

despair.

“Tell me about it,” said the monk, who, sitting on the foot of the bed,

began to be interested in a story so strangely introduced.

“Ah!” cried the dying man, with all the effusiveness of a grief

declared after long suppression, “ah! I have sought to stifle remorse

by twenty years of good deeds; I have assuaged the natural ferocity of

those who shed blood; on every occasion I have exposed my life to save

those who were in danger, and I have preserved lives in exchange for

that I took away. That is not all; the money gained in the exercise of

my profession I have distributed to the poor; I have been assiduous in

attending church and those who formerly fled from me have become

accustomed to seeing me. All have forgiven me, some have even loved me;

but I think that God has not pardoned me, for the memory of that

execution pursues me constantly and every night I see that woman’s

ghost rising before me.”

“A woman! You have assassinated a woman, then?” cried the monk.

“You also!” exclaimed the executioner, “you use that word which sounds

ever in my ears—‘assassinated!’ I have assassinated, then, and not

executed! I am an assassin, then, and not an officer of justice!” and

he closed his eyes with a groan.

The monk doubtless feared that he would die without saying more, for he

exclaimed eagerly:

“Go on, I know nothing, as yet; when you have finished your story, God

and I will judge.”

“Oh, father,” continued the executioner, without opening his eyes, as

if he feared on opening them to see some frightful object, “it is

especially when night comes on and when I have to cross a river, that

this terror which I have been unable to conquer comes upon me; it then

seems as if my hand grew heavy, as if the cutlass was still in its

grasp, as if the water had the color of blood, and all the voices of

nature—the whispering of the trees, the murmur of the wind, the lapping

of the wave—united in a voice tearful, despairing, terrible, crying to

me, ‘Place for the justice of God!’”

“Delirium!” murmured the monk, shaking his head.

The executioner opened his eyes, turned toward the young man and

grasped his arm.

“‘Delirium,’” he repeated; “‘delirium,’ do you say? Oh, no! I remember

too well. It was evening; I had thrown the body into the river and

those words which my remorse repeats to me are those which I in my

pride pronounced. After being the instrument of human justice I aspired

to be that of the justice of God.”

“But let me see, how was it done? Speak,” said the monk.

“It was at night. A man came to me and showed me an order and I

followed him. Four other noblemen awaited me. They led me away masked.

I reserved the right of refusing if the office they required of me

should seem unjust. We traveled five or six leagues, serious, silent,

and almost without speaking. At length, through the window of a little

hut, they showed me a woman sitting, leaning on a table, and said,

‘there is the person to be executed.’”

“Horrible!” said the monk. “And you obeyed?”

“Father, that woman was a monster. It was said that she had poisoned

her second husband; she had tried to assassinate her brother-in-law;

she had just poisoned a young woman who was her rival, and before

leaving England she had, it was believed, caused the favorite of the

king to be murdered.”

“Buckingham?” cried the monk.

“Yes, Buckingham.”

“The woman was English, then?”

“No, she was French, but she had married in England.”

The monk turned pale, wiped his brow and went and bolted the door. The

executioner thought that he had abandoned him and fell back, groaning,

upon his bed.

“No, no; I am here,” said the monk, quickly coming back to him. “Go on;

who were those men?”

“One of them was a foreigner, English, I think. The four others were

French and wore the uniform of musketeers.”

“Their names?” asked the monk.

“I don’t know them, but the four other noblemen called the Englishman

‘my lord.’”

“Was the woman handsome?”

“Young and beautiful. Oh, yes, especially beautiful. I see her now, as

on her knees at my feet, with her head thrown back, she begged for

life. I have never understood how I could have laid low a head so

beautiful, with a face so pale.”

The monk seemed agitated by a strange emotion; he trembled all over; he

seemed eager to put a question which yet he dared not ask. At length,

with a violent effort at self-control:

“The name of that woman?” he said.

“I don’t know what it was. As I have said, she was twice married, once

in France, the second time in England.”

“She was young, you say?”

“Twenty-five years old.”

“Beautiful?”

“Ravishingly.”

“Blond?”

“Yes.”

“Abundance of hair—falling over her shoulders?”

“Yes.”

“Eyes of an admirable expression?”

“When she chose. Oh, yes, it is she!”

“A voice of strange sweetness?”

“How do you know it?”

The executioner raised himself on his elbow and gazed with a frightened

air at the monk, who became livid.

“And you killed her?” the monk exclaimed. “You were the tool of those

cowards who dared not kill her themselves? You had no pity for that

youthfulness, that beauty, that weakness? you killed that woman?”

“Alas! I have already told you, father, that woman, under that angelic

appearance, had an infernal soul, and when I saw her, when I recalled

all the evil she had done to me——”

“To you? What could she have done to you? Come, tell me!”

“She had seduced and ruined my brother, a priest. She had fled with him

from her convent.”

“With your brother?”

“Yes, my brother was her first lover, and she caused his death. Oh,

father, do not look in that way at me! Oh, I am guilty, then; you will

not pardon me?”

The monk recovered his usual expression.

“Yes, yes,” he said, “I will pardon you if you tell me all.”

“Oh!” cried the executioner, “all! all! all!”

“Answer, then. If she seduced your brother—you said she seduced him,

did you not?”

“Yes.”

“If she caused his death—you said that she caused his death?”

“Yes,” repeated the executioner.

“Then you must know what her name was as a young girl.”

“Oh, _mon Dieu!_” cried the executioner, “I think I am dying.

Absolution, father! absolution.”

“Tell me her name and I will give it.”

“Her name was——My God, have pity on me!” murmured the executioner; and

he fell back on the bed, pale, trembling, and apparently about to die.

“Her name!” repeated the monk, bending over him as if to tear from him

the name if he would not utter it; “her name! Speak, or no absolution!”

The dying man collected all his forces.

The monk’s eyes glittered.

“Anne de Bueil,” murmured the wounded man.

“Anne de Bueil!” cried the monk, standing up and lifting his hands to

Heaven. “Anne de Bueil! You said Anne de Bueil, did you not?”

“Yes, yes, that was her name; and now absolve me, for I am dying.”

“I, absolve you!” cried the priest, with a laugh which made the dying

man’s hair stand on end; “I, absolve you? I am not a priest.”

“You are not a priest!” cried the executioner. “What, then, are you?”

“I am about to tell you, wretched man.”

“Oh, _mon Dieu!_”

“I am John Francis de Winter.”

“I do not know you,” said the executioner.

“Wait, wait; you are going to know me. I am John Francis de Winter,” he

repeated, “and that woman——”

“Well, that woman?”

“Was my mother!”

The executioner uttered the first cry, that terrible cry which had been

first heard.

“Oh, pardon me, pardon me!” he murmured; “if not in the name of God, at

least in your own name; if not as priest, then as son.”

“Pardon you!” cried the pretended monk, “pardon you! Perhaps God will

pardon you, but I, never!”

“For pity’s sake,” said the executioner, extending his arms.

“No pity for him who had no pity! Die, impenitent, die in despair, die

and be damned!” And drawing a poniard from beneath his robe he thrust

it into the breast of the wounded man, saying, “Here is my absolution!”

Then was heard that second cry, not so loud as the first and followed

by a long groan.

The executioner, who had lifted himself up, fell back upon his bed. As

to the monk, without withdrawing the poniard from the wound, he ran to

the window, opened it, leaped out into the flowers of a small garden,

glided onward to the stable, took out his mule, went out by a back

gate, ran to a neighbouring thicket, threw off his monkish garb, took

from his valise the complete habiliment of a cavalier, clothed himself

in it, went on foot to the first post, secured there a horse and

continued with a loose rein his journey to Paris.