Valérie cared! Valérie loved him! Valérie, too, had been through her hour of torment. "Not as a man--as a priest, a priest of God." No, he would not believe that, he would not let himself believe that. It could not be so! She was troubled, in distress--about something else. What time was it now? Not daylight yet--the merciful daylight--no sign of daylight yet? If it were true--what then? If she cared--what then?
If Valérie loved him--what then? What was he to do in the "afterwards"? It would not be himself alone who was to bear the burden then. It was not true, of course; he would not believe it, he would not let himself believe it. But if it were true how would Valérie endure the hanging by the neck until he was dead of the man she loved, or the knowledge of what he was, or the death by accident--of the man she loved!
He did not stir now. He made no sound, no movement--and his head lay in his outflung arms. And time passed, and through the window crept the gray of dawn--and presently it was daylight--the merciful daylight--and the night was gone. But he was scarcely conscious of it now. It grew lighter still, and filled the room--that merciful daylight. And his brain, sick and stumbling and weary, reeled on and on, and there was the dream of the Walled Place again, and Valérie was closing the gate that was studded with iron spikes--and there was no way out.
And then very slowly, like a man rousing from a stupor, his head came up from the desk, and he listened. From across the green came the sound of the church bells ringing for early mass. And as he listened the bells seemed to catch up the tempo of some refrain. What was it? Yes, he knew now. It was the opening of the mass--the words he would have to go in there presently and say. Were they mocking him, those bells! Was this what the daylight, the merciful daylight had brought--only a crowning, pitiless, merciless jeer! His face, strained and haggard, lifted suddenly a little higher. Was it only mockery, or could it be--see, they seemed to peal more softly now--could it be that they held another meaning--like voices calling in compassion to him because he was lost? No--his mind was dazed--it could not mean that--for him. But listen! They were repeating it over and over again. It was the call to mass, for it was daylight, and the beginning of a new day. Listen!