THE FOOL ERRANT - World eBook Library - World Public Library

He felt my touch, and recoiled from it: he looked at me half askance, from under knitted brows and between blinking lids, as if
he thought me a spirit. "Paradise of God," says he then, "who is this?" His glance lighted upon the cupboard doors set open; he
frowned and said, with difference: "And who are you that speak of angels?"
"Sir," I replied, and my convictions were never more firmly in my words, "my name is Wretch, and I am unworthy to live. I am
that vile thing once called Francis Strelley, now brought to confusion and conscious of his horrible offence. Sir! Sir!" I said
wildly, "Donna Aurelia is the handmaid of high Heaven.—While I, while I—O God!" emotion poured its hot flood over me. I
fell to my knees.
In the painful silence which ensued, and no doubt seemed longer than it actually was, I suppose that he collected some half of
the truth, and in the manner of him who sees but half, distorted it to be greater than the whole. His manner towards me altered
very materially; he resumed his authority.
"Get up," he said, croaking like a raven; and at first I thought that I dared not, and immediately after knew that I dared. I sprang
to my feet, and faced him, livid as he was. "Doctor Lanfranchi," said I, "I have overheard you-by accident—as you praised her.
I have heard you call her good. Ah, and in agreeing with you I can testify that you spoke more truth than you dreamed of. No
saint in Heaven is so good as she, but it has been required of me that I should grope in Hell before I could see Heaven in her
soul."
He held himself from me by doing violence to his own person—caught at his cravat and gripped it with both hands.
"What are you saying? Say that again. Of what do you accuse yourself?"
"Of sin," I said. He looked at the cupboard, then with chilly rage at me.
"What were you doing in there?" he asked; and that was a terrible question, since there I never ought to have been.
I asked him would he hear me? He nodded his head and sat grimly down by the table, at which of late he had so happily
reclined. He covered his mouth and nose with his hand, but kept his piercing eyes upon me. Disconcerting! but even so, had he
listened in silence I might have made him see the truth.
"Sir," I began, "it is true that I love, and have always loved, your wife; and it is true that I have been wicked enough to declare
my passion. But it is also true that by her, and by her alone, I have been convinced of my presumption." Here he held up his
hand.
"Stop there. You say you have been convinced. How were you convinced? Where were you convinced? Let me understand
you. Was it in there?" He jerked his hand towards the fatal cupboard.
"Yes," I replied, "it was in there. I was forced to overhear your conversation with Donna Aurelia, which proved to me that I am
less than nothing to her, and that you are all the world."
He snorted, scoffing at the thought. "We shall see soon enough," he said bitterly, "who and what I am."
I continued: "If you think that I have injured YOU—I say nothing of my lady or of myself—you are horribly deceived. On the
contrary, I have done you a service. You have the proof to your hand that you are the husband of a pattern among ladies."
Here, once more, he looked at the cupboard, and "Ma!" he said, and shrugged. After this, so long as I could speak to him, he
tapped his foot.
"Punish me," I advised him; "use me as you will; kill me—I shall not defend myself. I have never yet refused to take the
consequences of my acts. But over my dead body, if you are a true man, you will give thanks to God for the gift of such a wife
as you have."
I was indignant, honestly, and, as I think, rightly so; but again he misunderstood me.
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