My heart gave a great throb of joy; her every word gave me hope in spite of myself.

"Mr. Blake," she continued, "I never must marry him."

"G.o.d grant you may not," I said.

"I must not," she said, "and you must keep me from danger."

"I, Miss Forrest! I would give the world if I could: but how can I? You do not know the terrible slavery that binds me, neither can I tell you."

"I shall trust in you to deliver me from this man," she went on without heeding me. "You must prove yourself to be innocent."

"To do that I must bring this man Kaffar. I know nothing of him. I could never find him. Oh, I tell you, Miss Forrest, a thousand evil powers seem to rend me when I attempt to do what I long for."

"I shall trust in you," she cried. "Surely you are sufficiently interested in me to save me from a man like Voltaire?"

"Interested?" I cried. "I would die for you, I love you so. And yet I can do nothing."

"You can do something; you can do everything. You can save me from him."

"Oh," I cried, "I know I must appear a pitiful coward to you. It is for me you have placed yourself in this position, while I refuse to try to liberate you from it. If I only could; if I dared! But I am chained on every hand."

"But you are going to break those chains; you are going to be free; you are going to be happy."

Her words nerved me. The impossible seemed possible, and yet everything was misty.

"Only one thing can make me happy," I said, "and that can never be now.

I have lost my strength; I am become a pitiful coward."

"You are going to be happy!" she repeated.

"Miss Forrest," I said, "do not mock me. My life for days has been a h.e.l.l. I have had a terrible existence; no light shines in the sky. You cannot think what your words mean to me, or you would not speak them."

"Will you not, for my sake, if not for your own, exert yourself? Will you not think of my happiness a little? The thought of marrying that man is madness."

"Miss Forrest," I cried, "you must think I have lost all manhood, all self-respect, when you hear what I say; but the only thing that could make me think of trying to do what is ten thousand times my duty to do, is that you will give me some hope that, if I should succeed, you will be the wife of such a poor thing as I am."

She looked at me intently. She was very pale, and her eyes shone like stars. Beautiful she looked beyond compare, and so grand, so n.o.ble. She was tied down to no conventionalities; whither her pure true heart led her, she followed.

"If you succeed," she said, "I will be your wife."

"But not simply from a feeling of pity?" I cried. "I could not let you do that. I have manliness enough for that even yet."

"No," she said proudly, "but because you are the only man I ever did or can love."

For a minute I forgot my woes, my pains. No ghastly deed taunted me with its memory, no dark cloud hung in the skies. I felt my Gertrude's lips against mine; I felt that her life was given to me. I was no longer alone and desolate; a pure, beautiful woman had trusted me so fully, so truly, that hope dawned in my sky, and earth was heaven.

"Now, Justin," she said, after a few minutes of happy silence, "you must away. Every hour may be precious. G.o.d knows how gladly I would be with you, but it must not be. But remember, my hope lies in you, and my love is given to you. G.o.d bless you!"

She went away then and left me; while I, without knowing why, prepared to start for London.

I had a great work to do. I had, if I was to win Gertrude for my wife, to break and crush Voltaire's power over me. I had to find Kaffar, if he was to be found, and that to me was an awful uncertainty, and I had to bring him to Gertrude before the next Christmas Eve.

Away from her the skies were dark again, great heavy weights rested on my heart, and my life seemed clogged. Still her love had nerved me to do what I otherwise could never have done. It had nerved me to try; and so, with her warm kiss burning on my lips, I hurried off to the great metropolis without any definite idea why I was going.

CHAPTER XIV

G.o.d

For the next three months I was an atheist! These are easy words to write, but terrible to realize. No one but those who know can tell the terror of a man who has given up belief in an Eternal Goodness, in a living G.o.d that cares for man.

I left Yorkshire with some little hope in my heart--the memory of Gertrude's words was with me, cheering me during the long ride; but when once alone in my rooms, nothing but a feeling of utter desolation possessed my heart. The terrible night on the Yorkshire moors came back again, the dark forbidding waters, the ghastly red hand, the gleaming knife, the struggle--all were real. Did I kill him? I did not know.

Possibly I was a murderer in act, if not in thought. I could not bear to think of it. Who can bear to think of having taken away a fellow-creature's life? And he might be lying in Drearwater Pond even then!

Then there was the terrible spell that this man had cast upon me. I felt it clinging to every fibre of my being. I was not living a true life; I was living a dual life. A power extraneous to myself, and yet possessing me, made me a mere machine. As the days and weeks pa.s.sed away things became worse. I promised Gertrude to exert myself to find Kaffar, to set her free from her promise to Voltaire; but I could not do it. His command was upon me. I felt that it was ever in his mind that I should not make any efforts, and I had to obey. And his power was evil, his motives were fiendish, his nature was depraved. Still preachers talked of a loving G.o.d, of the good being stronger than the evil. It could not be.

"Try! Try! Resist! Resist! Struggle! Struggle!" said hope and duty and love; and I tried, I resisted, I struggled. And still I was bound in chains; still I was held by a mysterious occult power.

Then it ceased to feel to be a duty to rid Gertrude of Voltaire. Why should I struggle and resist? Supposing I succeeded, was I any more fit to be her husband than he? What was I? At best a poor weak creature, the plaything of a villain. At any time he could exert his power and make me his slave. But I might be worse than that. I might, with my own hand, have sent a man into eternity. How did I know it was Voltaire's power that made me do the deed? Might not my blind pa.s.sion have swept me on to this dark deed? But that could not be. No, no; I could not believe that.

Besides, Voltaire had told me it was because of him. Still, I was not fit to be her husband.

Then her words came back to me, and her pure influence gave me strength.

She, so pure, so true, had seemed to understand my position, had bid me hope and be brave. She had told me she loved me--she, whom hundreds of brave men would love to call their own. I would try again. I _would_ brake the chains Voltaire had forged; I WOULD hurl from me the incubus that would otherwise crush me.

I tried again, and again; and again, and again I failed.

I did not pray. I could not. If G.o.d cared, I thought, He would help the innocent. I was innocent in thought, and still I was not helped. G.o.d did not care, for He helped me not. Months had pa.s.sed away, and I had taken no forward step. I was still enslaved. The preachers were wrong; G.o.d did not care for the beings He had made.

There was no G.o.d.

G.o.d meant "the good one." "G.o.d is eternally good, all-powerful, if there is a G.o.d. But there is not," I said. Evil was rampant. Every day vice triumphed, every day virtue suffered. Goodness was not the strongest force. Vice was conquering; evil powers were triumphant. Why should any exception be made for me? If there is a G.o.d, evil would be checked, destroyed; instead of which, it was conquering every day. There could be no G.o.d; and if no G.o.d, good and evil were little more than names. We were the sport of chance, and chance meant the destruction of anything like moral responsibility. I could not help being const.i.tuted as I was, neither could Voltaire help his nature. One set of circ.u.mstances had surrounded his life, another mine, and our image and shape were according to the force of these circ.u.mstances. As for a G.o.d who loved us, it was absurd.

And yet who gave us love--made us capable of loving? Was love the result of chance, which was in reality nothing? And again, whence the idea of G.o.d, whence the longing for Him? Besides, did not the longing for Him give evidence of His being?

But I will not weary the reader with my mental wanderings; they are doubtless wearisome enough, and yet they were terribly real to me Although I have used but a few pages of paper in hinting at them, they caused me to lie awake through many a weary night.

Still no help came.

I went to a church one Sunday night. There was nothing of importance that struck me during the service, save the reading of one of the lessons. It was the story of the youth who was possessed with a devil, which the disciples could not cast out. The minister was, I should think, a good man, for he read it naturally, and with a great deal of power; and when he came to the part where Jesus came and caused the evil spirit to come out of him, my heart throbbed with joy. Was there hope for me? Was Jesus Christ still the same wonderful power? Was He here now--to help, to save?

That was at the end of three months.

I went home and prayed--prayed to be delivered from the evil power which chained me.

I might as well have turned my thoughts in another direction for all the good I could see it did me. The old numbing feeling still possessed me.