The Grey Cloak - Page 252/256

"I am an old man," said the marquis, bewildered. This priest must be a

nightmare, another of those phantoms which were crowding around his bed.

"How I longed for riches, luxury, content! For had I not your blood in

my veins and were not my desires natural? I became a priest because I

could starve no longer without dying. I have seen your true son in the

forests, have called him brother, though he did not understand. You

cursed him and made him an outcast, wilfully. I was starving as a lad

of two. My mother, Margot Bourdaloue, went out in search of bread. I

followed, but became lost. I never saw my mother again; I can not even

remember how she looked. I can only recall the starved eyes. And you

cursed your acknowledged son and applied to him the epithet which I

have borne these twenty years. Unnatural father!"

"Unnatural son," murmured the marquis.

"I have suffered!" Brother Jacques flung his arms above his head as if

to hurl the trembling curse. "No; I shall not curse you. You do not

believe in God. Heaven and hell have no meaning."

"I loved your mother."

"Love? That is a sacred word, Monsieur; you soil it. What was it you

said that night at Rochelle? . . . That for every soul you have sent

out of the world, you have brought another into it? Perhaps this

fellow is my brother, and I know it not; this woman my sister, and I

pass her by."

"I would have provided for you."

To Brother Jacques it seemed that his sword of wrath had been suddenly

twisted from his hand. The sweat stood out on his forehead.

"If you were turned away from my door, it was not my hand that opened

it."

"I asked for nothing but bread," said Brother Jacques, finding his

voice.

"Thirty years ago . . . I have forgotten. Margot never told me."

"It was easy to forget. I have never known, what love is . . . from

another."

"Have I?" with self-inflicted irony.

"I sought it; you repelled it."

"I knew not how to keep it, that was all. If I should say to you, 'My

son, I am sorry. I have lived evilly. I have wronged you; forgive me;

I am dying'!" The marquis was breathing with that rapidity which

foretells of coming dissolution. "What would you say, Jesuit?"

Brother Jacques stood petrified.

"That silence is scarce less than a curse," said the marquis.

Still Brother Jacques's tongue refused its offices.

"Ah, well, I brought you into the world carelessly, you have cursed me

out of it. We are quits. Begone!" There was dignity in his gesture

toward the door.

Brother Jacques did not stir.

"Begone, I say, and let me die in peace."

"I will give you absolution, father."