Chapter 25 twenty-three

The abbe came in, greeted me with a sullen and indifferent expression, and motioned me to keep away from Edmee's bed. "You're crazy!" he said to me. "Go back at once; be careful not to come here. It's the only thing you can do." "Since when have you had the right to remove me from your own house?" I exclaimed furiously. "Ah! You don't have a home anymore," he answered, in a tone of pain that calmed my anger. "Father and daughter are now nothing more than two ghosts. The spiritual life in them has been extinguished, and the physical life is about to give up. Please respect the dying moments of those who loved you."

"But how can I show my respect and pain while abandoning them?" I was petrified. "In this respect," said the abbe, "I neither wish nor ought to say anything to you, since it would be impertinent and sacrilegious for you to appear here. Go away till they are dead (the day will not be After that, if you have rights to this family, you can come back; you will certainly not find me doubting or confirming your rights here again. In the meantime, since I don't know these rights, I think I can take responsibility Let these two holy men be honored until their deathbed."

"Scumbag!" I exclaimed, "I don't know what prevents me from tearing you to pieces! From what hideous impulse do you thrust your dagger into my breast and turn it? Do you fear that I shall be spared from my misfortune? You I don’t know that three coffins will be carried out of this house together? Do you think I came here for other things, not to seek dying eyes and dying blessings?” "You should say pardon at the end of the day," answered the priest in a dark voice, with a gesture of cruel reproach. "I say you're crazy!" I cried. "If you hadn't been a priest, the way you talk to me, I'd blow you to pieces at my hands."

"I am not afraid of you, sir," he answered. "It did me a great favor to kill me; but I am sorry that you proved your accusation by threats and rage. If I had seen you sincerely repent, I would have wept with you; but you Your composure disgusts me. Before, I only regarded you as a manic lunatic; today, I believe that I have seen through a villain. Get out!" I sank down on an armchair, so angry and sad that I couldn't even speak.Right now, I wish I could die right away.Edmee was dying beside me; opposite was a judge who was convinced of my guilt, who was mild and timid, but became stern and cruel!The thought of losing the one I loved made me wish I were dead; but the dreadful guilt that lay upon my head cheered me up.I believe that such a crime cannot stand for a moment in the face of the voice of truth.I imagined that if I looked at it and said a word, it would be invincible; but I felt so dismayed and hurt that I refused this method of self-defense.The more the shame of being suspected weighed on me, the more I understood that it is almost impossible to successfully defend yourself when one has only the pride of an injustice as a weapon.

I stood there despondently, without a word, as if a lead cap had been pressed upon my head.The door opened again, and Miss LeBlanc came bluntly and informed me in a voice full of hatred that someone on the stairs outside wanted to speak to me.I walked out involuntarily and found Patience waiting for me, arms folded, in his most stern pose, with an expression on his face that would awe me, if I was guilty indeed. "Monsieur de Mauprat," said he, "I must speak to you privately; will you come with me to my house?" "Okay, I do," I replied. "I am ready to bear all humiliation, if only I could know what you want from me, and why you want to insult the most unfortunate. Go ahead, Patience; hurry, I am anxious to get back here."

Patience walked ahead of me impassively; and as we approached his cabin we saw my poor sergeant also hastily arriving.He couldn't find a horse to follow me, and he didn't want to be separated from me, so he came on foot, walking too fast, dripping with sweat.He had flung himself on a bench under the vine green corridor, caught a glimpse of us, jumped up vigorously, and walked towards us. "Patience!" he cried, in a tone so dramatic that it would have made me laugh if I hadn't been at all happy at such a moment. "Crazy old man! . . . malicious slander at your age? . . . Pooh! Monsieur . . . ruined by fate. . . .

Patience, who had been keeping his countenance, shrugged his shoulders and said to his friend: "Marcus, you don't know what you're talking about. Go and rest at the end of the orchard. It's none of your business here; I want to speak to your master alone. Go, I want you to go," he said. Pushing Marcus with his hand, the sergeant, for all his pomp and sensitivity, always obeyed such authoritative instructions out of instinct and habit. When we were alone, Patience interrogated me bluntly, and I resolved to be interrogated by him in order to ascertain as quickly as possible what was going on around me.

"Sir, will you tell me what you intend to do now?" "As long as I have a home, I intend to stay in my home," I replied, "and it's nobody's business what I do when I don't have a home anymore." "But, sir," continued Paccience, "if you were told that you could not stay in your house without inflicting a fatal blow on this or that family member, would you insist on staying?" "As long as I believe it to be so, I will not appear before their eyes; I will wait at their door till their last day, or the first day of their recovery, to ask them for the love I still deserve. "

"Ah! That's the problem!" Patience smiled contemptuously. "I don't believe you deserve it. Besides, I'm happy about it, which is more obvious." "What are you trying to say?" I yelled. "Speak, shameless! Explain to me." "You are the only one here who is shameless," he replied coldly, sitting down on his only bench and letting me continue to stand in front of him. I want an explanation from him at any cost.I restrained my temper, and even humbly expressed my readiness to be advised if he would consent to repeat to me what Edmee had said immediately after the accident, and what she had said again when she was feverish.

"Absolutely not," replied Patience stiffly; "you deserve not to hear a word from this mouth; I will never repeat it to you. Why should you know? I hope to hide something from people in the future." Is something wrong? God has seen you long ago, and to him there are no secrets. You go, stay in Maupra Rock, and keep your own place; when your uncle is dead and your affairs are settled, you will leave this place place. If you can trust me, you'd better leave now. I don't want you to be prosecuted, at least you don't make me do it by your actions. But the truth is at least suspected, if not sure. Two days. Once upon a time, a lackey of a servant who uttered a word carelessly in public might have attracted the attention of the judiciary; when a man was guilty, it was but a step from the court to the scaffold. I have never had any grievances against you, I've even made a friendship with you; heed this advice you say you're ready to accept. Go, or hide, and prepare to run away. I don't want your ruin, and neither does Edmee... So... listen do you understand?"

"You're crazy to think I'd follow such an advice. I've got to hide! I've got to run like a criminal! Don't dream! Come! Come! I'm going to fight you all .I don't know what rage and hatred is tormenting you and making you unite against me; I don't know why you keep me from seeing my uncle and cousin; but I despise your follies. My place is here ;I will not go away, except by the formal order of my cousin or uncle; and this order must be heard by me from their own mouth, because I will never have any outsider convey the sentence to me. So thank you for your trouble, Papa. Mr. Schyonce; in that case, my own wit will suffice. Goodbye." I was about to get out of the hut, but he rushed in front of me, and for a moment, he seemed to be planning to use force to stop me.Although he is old and I am tall and strong, he may still have the upper hand in such a contest.Small, stooped, broad-shouldered, he was a strong man. But just as he raised his arms towards me, he stopped.Just when he was about to lose his temper, he was seized by the violent sympathy that so often ruled him; looking at me with pity, he said to me benevolently: "Unfortunate man! I have always loved you as my own child, because I regarded you as Edmee's brother, and do not kill yourself. I beseech you in the name of Edmee, whom you killed, and you Still in love with her—I can see that—but you'll never see her again. Believe me, your family was a fine ship yesterday with you at the helm; A stranded ship, without sail or pilot; must be manned by midshipmen, as friend Marcus says. Well, my poor wrecked crew, don't insist on drowning yourself. I'll throw you a A rope, hold on to it; another day, and it will be too late. Think, if the judiciary catches you, the man who tried to save you today will have to appear in court tomorrow to accuse you and condemn you. Such things I The memory brings tears to my eyes, don't force me to do it. Bernard, you were once loved, my child, and today you can live on the past." I wept bitterly; at this moment the sergeant who came in also wept, and begged me to return to Mopra Rock.But I soon picked myself up, pushed them away, and said: "I know that you are all kind and generous people who love me because you believe me to have committed a terrible crime and want to save my life. But please rest assured, my friends, that I am innocent, No such crime. On the contrary, I hope that the investigation will be clear, and I can be sure that I will be acquitted. For the sake of my family, I should live until my honor is fully restored. However, if I hit Doomed to see my cousin die, and since I have no one to love in the world but her, I'll blow my head out. Why should I slump? I don't love life, and I won't live after her! May God make her deathbed peaceful and painless—that's all I ask of God." Patience shook his head with a gloomy disapproval.He was so convinced of my crime that any denial by me cost me his mercy.Marcus still loves me; but no one in the world vouches for my innocence but myself. "If you return to the castle, you will swear here that you will never enter the chambers of your cousin or uncle without the priest's permission!" cried Patience. "I swear, I am innocent," I replied, "and I will not let anyone accuse me of any crime. Stand back, both of you! Let me pass! Patience, if you think it is you who have accused me If you are not responsible, then go and report. All I hope is not to convict me without listening to my appeal. I would rather have the court try according to law than public opinion will punish me at will." I rushed out of the hut and returned to the castle.Not wanting to make a fuss in front of the servants, knowing that they would not conceal the truth about Edmee from me, I went into my usual bedroom and shut the door. However, in the evening, when I came out of the bedroom to find out about the condition of two relatives, Miss LeBlanc came to inform me that someone was looking for me outside.I saw an expression of satisfaction and fear on her face.I knew I was going to be arrested, and I guessed that it was Miss LeBlanc who had informed me (and it was).I went to the window and saw several cavalrymen from the Mounted Police waiting in the yard. "Well," I said, "as fate would have it." But before I leave--perhaps for ever--the house in which I have left my soul, I shall look at Edmee one last time.I went straight to her bedroom.Miss LeBlanc tried to throw herself against the door; I gave her a sharp push, and she fell, slightly wounded, I presume.Immediately she yelled so loudly that it shook the house; later, at interrogation, she alarmistly called the remark an attempted murder of herself.Presently I went into Edmee's room, and found the priest and doctor there.I listened to the doctor's explanation in silence, and learned that these wounds themselves were not fatal, or even not serious, as long as the strong stimulation of the brain did not cause complications in the wounds, and did not cause people to worry about causing tetanus.This frightening term sounds to me like a sentence of death.In America I have seen many people wounded in war die of this dreadful disease.I approach the bed.The abbe was so dejected that he never thought of stopping me.I took Edmee's hand, which was still cold and unconscious.I kissed it one last time, and without saying a word to anyone else, I went and surrendered myself to the Mounties.