Bressant

Then blackness obliterated every thing. But Bressant, as he walked

heavily along, encompassed with bitter and miserable thoughts, suddenly

halted, as if an iron hand had been laid upon his shoulder. Either he

had actually heard a faint echo of that unearthly cry, or his spiritual

ear had taken cognizance of the call of Sophie's soul. He turned himself

about, with a quaking heart. There was the long white road, but no human

being was visible upon it. Yet he knew that Sophie's voice had called

him. She must be near. Slowly he began to walk back, half dreading to

behold her image rise before him, with deep, reproachful eyes.

He had not gone twenty yards, when he started back, having almost set

his foot upon something which lay face downward in the snow, clad in a

dress almost as white. He would not have seen her but for her brown

hair, which, falling loosely about, was caught and stirred by the

inquisitive breeze. She herself lay quite still.

Bressant took her beneath the arms, and lifted her up. Crouching down,

he supported her head against his shoulder, and brushed away the snow

that had adhered to her face. There was a cut upon her chin, but the

blood, after running a few moments, had congealed. Her eyes were not

quite shut, but the lids were stiff and immovable. The mouth, too, was a

little open. Was it the moonlight that gave her that death-like look? or

was she dead indeed?

The young man broke out into a long, wavering cry. It was not weeping;

it was not laughter; yet it bore a resemblance to both. It curdled his

own blood, but he could not repress it. It was the voice of

overstrained, unendurable emotion, and a horrible voice it was to hear.

He feared he was losing his senses--looking in that white, motionless

face, and uttering such a cry! At last, however, it died away, and there

was silence. The silence was almost worse than the cry--the utter

silence of a winter night.

"What shall I do?" he said to himself, helplessly.

The unearthly voice, and the discovery to which it had led, following

the other events of the night, had made Bressant unfit to deal with this

matter after his usual ready and practical style. But he would have

found the problem an awkward one at his best. How could he appear at the

Parsonage? What account could he give there of this lifeless body? What

account could he give of it to himself? He was utterly bewildered and

aghast. It seemed that the dead had risen from the grave, to drag him

relentlessly back to the fullest glare of earthly ignominy--to the

keenest experience of human suffering. And yet, did he quite deserve it?

Was there no grain of leaven in his lump of sinfulness and weakness, if

all were known? He is a hardened criminal, indeed, who can find no hope

in the thought of appealing from human judgment to Divine!