And lo! the Fellows of the Holy College were in the Inner House; every man in his place, every man looking on, and every man standing upright with eyes and gestures of scorn.
John Lax appeared at the door, halberd in hand.
"Brothers of the Holy College!" I cried, "you have beheld the crime--you are witnesses of the Fact--you have actually seen the Arch Physician himself revealing the Great Secret, which none of yourselves, even of the College, hath been permitted to learn--the Secret confined by the Wisdom of the College to himself and to his Suffragan."
"We are witnesses," they cried, with one consent. To my great satisfaction, even those who were of Dr. Linister's party, and who voted with him against the Administration and Policy of the College, spoke, on this occasion, for the plain and undeniable truth.
"What," I asked, "is the Penalty when one of the least among us, even an Assistant only, betrays to the People any of the secrets--even the least secret--of the work carried on in this House?"
"It is DEATH," they replied, with one voice.
"It is DEATH," I repeated, pointing to the Arch Physician.
At such a moment, when nothing short of annihilation appeared in view, one would have expected from the guilty pair an appearance of the greatest consternation and dismay. On the contrary, the Arch Physician, with an insensibility--or a bravado--which one would not have expected of him, stood before us all, his arms folded, his eyes steady, his lips even smiling. Beside him stood the girl, dressed in the ridiculous mummery of the nineteenth century, bowed down, her face in her hands.
"It is I," she murmured--"it is I, Harry, who have brought you to this. Oh, forgive me! Let us die together. Since I have awakened out of the stupid torpor of the Present--since we remembered the Past--and Love--let us die together; for I could not live without you." She knelt at his feet, and laid her head upon his arm. "My love," she said, "my Lord and Love! let me die with you."
At this extraordinary spectacle I laughed aloud. Love? I thought the old wives' tales of Love and Lordship were long, long since dead and forgotten. Yet here was a man for the sake of a woman--actually because she wanted to go away and begin again the old pernicious life--breaking his most sacred vows; and here was a woman--for the sake of this man--actually and truly for his sake--asking for death--death with him! Since, when they were both dead, there could be no more any feeling one for the other, why ask for death? What good could that do for either?