When It Was Dark Part 56

He looked round for some means to end this unbearable torture. He could see nothing, the room was very cold and dark, but he knew there was a case of razors on a table by the window.

When he tried to move he found that he could not. The paralysis was growing upwards.

Then this was to be the end?

A momentary flood of relief came over him. His blood seemed warm again.

But the sensation died rapidly away, the physical and mental glow alike.

He remembered those cases, frequent enough, when the whole body loses the power of movement, but the brain survives, active, alive, helpless.

And all the sweat which the physical glow had induced turned to little icicles all over his body, even as the thought froze in his brain.

An hour went by.

Alone in the dark.

His tongue was parched and dry. A sudden wonder came to him--could he speak still?

Without realising what word he used as a test he spoke.

"Kate."

A gaunt whisper in the silence.

Silence! How silent it was! Yet no, he could hear the distant rumbling of the traffic. He became suddenly conscious of it. Surely it was very loud?

It must be this physical change which was creeping over him. His head was swimming, disordered.

Yet it seemed strangely loud.

And louder, as he began to listen intently. He could not move his head to catch the sound more clearly, but he was beginning to hear it well enough now.

No traffic ever sounded quite like that. It was like an advancing tide, thundering, as a horse gallops, over flat, level sands.

A great sea rus.h.i.+ng towards--towards what?

Then he knew what that sound was.

At last he knew.

He could hear the individual shouts that made up the enormous ma.s.s of menacing sound.

The nation was coming to take its revenge upon its betrayer.

Mob law!

They had found him out. It was as Schuabe had said--the great conspiracy was at an end. The stunning truth was out, flying round the world with its glad message.

Yet, though once more the dishonoured Cross gleamed as the one solace in the hearts of men whose faith had been weak, though at that moment the glad news was racing round the world, yet the evil was not over.

The Prince of the Powers of the air had reigned too long. Not lightly was he to relinquish his sceptre and dominion.

They were in the erst-while quiet street below. The whole s.p.a.ce was packed with the roaring mult.i.tude. The cries and curses came up to him in one roaring volume of sound, sounds that one looking over the brink of the pit of h.e.l.l might hear.

A heavy blow upon the stout door of the old well-built house shook the walls where the palsied Judas lay impotent.

Another cras.h.!.+ The room was much lighter now, the crowd below had lights with them.

Crash.

The door opened silently. Lady Llwellyn came swiftly into the room.

She wore a long white robe. Her face was lighted as if a lamp shone behind it.

In her hand was the great crucifix which was wont to hang above her bed.

When Christ died and bade the dying thief ascend with him to Paradise, can we say that His silence condemned the other?

Her face was all aglow with love.

"Robert!" she said. Her voice was like the voice of an angel.

Her arms are round him, her kisses press upon him, the great crucifix is lifted to his dying eyes.

A great thunder on the stairs, furious voices, the tide rising higher, higher.

Death.

CHAPTER IX

AT WALKTOWN AGAIN

The news came to Walktown, the final confirmation of what had been so long suspected, in a short telegram from Basil, dispatched immediately he had left Downing Street.

Mr. Byars and Helena had been kept well acquainted with every step in the progress of the investigation.

Ever since Gortre had left Walktown, after his holiday visit, his suspicions had been ringing in the vicar's ears.

Then, when the matter had been communicated to Sir Michael and Father Ripon, when Spence had started, and Mr. Byars knew that all the powers of wealth and intellect were at work, his hopes revived.

The vicar's faith had never for a single moment wavered.

In the crash of the creeds his deep conviction never wavered.