“Where are you going?” said Haldane, interposing, and placing down the lamp he carried.
“Up yonder, to see if it is true. It is surely a frightful dream! Let me pass!”
“Stay where you are! Your presence shall not outrage the dead again.”
With a wild cry, Santley clutched Haldane; but his hold was so weak, so tremulous, that the other’s strong frame scarcely shook.
“You shall not escape,” cried the minister. “Coward! murderer! I will deliver you up to justice!”
With a powerful movement, Haldane disengaged himself, and his opponent fell back into the room. Santley was not a strong man, and just then he seemed positively helpless; nor would he at any time have been a match for the square-built, broad-shouldered master of Foxglove Manor.
“Hands off, if you please,” said Haldane. “If it comes to a trial of strength, I shall crush your reverend carcase like an egg. Another man, in my position, would have wrung your neck long ago. Do you know why I have been so gentle with you?”
Santley gazed at him vacantly, and did not speak.
“Because I prefer to prolong your agony as long as possible, and to let the world know of what stuff its priests are made.”
“You are a murderer,” gasped Santley again, clutching at him, but with the feeble grasp of a sick child. “You are a murderer, on your own confession. I tell you, I will give you up.”
“You have destroyed your wife--the purest and best woman God ever made. She was innocent of all wrong. She was an angel married to a devil, that was all.”
“Will you swear to me, before the God you worship, that there was nothing between you?”
“Yes, I will swear it. I loved her, but she was pure. If there was any sin, it was on my shoulders, for I tempted her. Yet you destroyed the innocent, and let the guilty live.”
Overcome by his emotion, Santley sank into a chair, sobbing. Haldane watched him for a short space in silence; then approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He tried to shake off the touch, with a shiver of loathing.
“I am glad that you perceive your own guilt; that is something. Under the mask of friendship--worse, under cover of your holy calling, you came to this house. I welcomed you, entertained you. I gave you my hand freely, as man to man; trusted you, even respected you, despite your superstitions. How did you reward this hospitality? By seducing, or seeking to seduce, the wife of the man who welcomed you without suspicion. This was your religion--this was your sense of Christian brotherhood. My man of God was a hypocrite--an adulterer. I tell you, a dog would have more honour, more purity. You made my house a hell. In return, I have put hell into your heart. You hear? Into your heart, if you have a heart, which would seem doubtful. Another would have killed you; I preferred to let you live.”