When he was safely attired in them, the young surgeon, as he conducted him through the ward, said in reply to a question: "Oh no!--not the slightest _danger_ from the breath. You may be quite happy about that. Let Sister Martha put a little eau-de-Cologne on your handkerchief. This is your man."
This! This semi-mummy that is little else than bandages! This thing, at least, only manifested to us, otherwise, as an exposed mouth; or what was a mouth and is an orifice, to be identified by two carious, projecting teeth; or as the nailless fingers of an enclosed hand, escaping from its wraps. This, it seems, is the Rev. Athelstan Taylor's man, by whom he takes a chair the nurse brings him, as he thinks to himself: "My man, thank God, not Gus's!" For his invalid friend might easily have been here in his place, and could _he_--poor delicate fellow!--have borne the awful flavour of this place, breaking through all antiseptic spray and palliation of ozone, and making him, himself, as physically sick as he is sick at heart? "Not Gus's man, thank God! At least, a great overgrown giant like myself!" So he thought as he tried to catch the words of the wretched remnant on the bed beside him. They were audible only by him, as he stooped resolutely, brushing all caution aside, and placed his ear close to the dreadful mouth. It needed an effort, even with Sister Martha's benediction on his handkerchief.
"What is my name, and who am I?" He repeats the whispered words as he hears them. "I am Athelstan Taylor, a priest in holy orders.... Yes--a clergyman of the Church of England ... yes!--I understand what you say. You have something on your conscience which you wish to tell. Try and tell me."
The nurse evidently thinks the man is dying, and may die without receiving the Sacrament, which she has supposed his principal object. She makes a suggestion to that effect. But Mr. Taylor thinks otherwise. "Presently!" he says. "Let him tell his story first." The nurse retires, and the tale goes on.
It was a hard tale to catch the threads of. But its hearer was able to master the main points. The narrator had married, sixteen years before, a very young and inexperienced girl, unknown to her parents, who seemed to have remained in ignorance throughout. Even when he deserted her, a very short time after marriage, she kept her secret from everyone but a young clerk, a friend of his own, with whom, as a natural consequence, the poor girl, apparently afraid to divulge the facts to her family, became very _liée_. His story was obscure at this point, the only clear thing being that, in order to shake her off and remain free to contract another marriage, he had written a mock confession to this young man; alleging, on grounds which the dying man's condition prevented his explaining in full, that the wedding had been really a fraud, and his statement that it was so seemed to have been held sufficient by the girl. The friend, either convinced of its truth or in love with the girl himself, had accepted it, or seemed to accept it, as indisputable. Was it to be wondered at that, when she returned to her home after an absence of some months, with nothing to show that this concealed marriage had taken place, she had accepted this young man as her lover, and married him with the full consent of her parents? The narrator had clearly foreseen this, and looked to it as a practical release from an encumbrance. His own subsequent career had been one of profligacy and crime, some of his sins being, to all appearance, far worse than this one, as such things are estimated; one achievement having, in fact, procured him a long term of penal servitude. How strange it seemed that now, with the hand of Death upon him, he should feel the lighter offence an exceptional weight upon his conscience! Yet so it was! And his hearer thought he could detect the relief the confession had given him in the changed whisper that followed the completion of his story. Mr. Taylor was glad that the atrocity that sent him to Portland Island was not specially referred to in the culprit's final inquiry--could he hope for forgiveness?