"Do you know me for Robert Mannion?" he repeated. "Do you know the work of your own hands, now you see it? Or, am I changed to you past recognition, as your father might have found my father changed, if he had seen him on the morning of his execution, standing under the gallows, with the cap over his face?"
Still I could neither speak nor move. I could only look away from him in horror, and fix my eyes on the ground.
He lowered the shade to its former position on his face, then spoke again.
"Under this earth that we stand on," he said, setting his foot on the grave; "down here, where you are now looking, lies buried with the buried dead, the last influence which might one day have gained you respite and mercy at my hands. Did you think of the one, last chance that you were losing, when you came to see her die? I watched you, and I watched her. I heard as much as you heard; I saw as much as you saw; I know when she died, and how, as you know it; I shared her last moments with you, to the very end. It was my fancy not to give her up, as your sole possession, even on her death-bed: it is my fancy, now, not to let you stand alone--as if her corpse was your property--over her grave!"
While he uttered the last words, I felt my self-possession returning. I could not force myself to speak, as I would fain have spoken--I could only move away, to leave him.
"Stop," he said, "what I have still to say concerns you. I have to tell you, face to face, standing with you here, over her dead body, that what I wrote from the hospital, is what I will do; that I will make your whole life to come, one long expiation of this deformity;" (he pointed to his face), "and of that death" (he set his foot once more on the grave). "Go where you will, this face of mine shall never be turned away from you; this tongue, which you can never silence but by a crime, shall awaken against you the sleeping superstitions and cruelties of all mankind. The noisome secret of that night when you followed us, shall reek up like a pestilence in the nostrils of your fellow-beings, be they whom they may. You may shield yourself behind your family and your friends--I will strike at you through the dearest and the bravest of them! Now you have heard me, go! The next time we meet, you shall acknowledge with your own lips that I can act as I speak. Live the free life which Margaret Sherwin has restored to you by her death--you will know it soon for the life of Cain!"
He turned from the grave, and left me by the way that he had come; but the hideous image of him, and the remembrance of the words he had spoken, never left me. Never for a moment, while I lingered alone in the churchyard; never, when I quitted it, and walked through the crowded streets. The horror of the fiend-face was still before my eyes, the poison of the fiend-words was still in my ears, when I returned to my lodging, and found Ralph waiting to see me as soon as I entered my room.
"At last you have come back!" he said; "I was determined to stop till you did, if I stayed all day. Is anything the matter? Have you got into some worse difficulty than ever?"
"No, Ralph--no. What have you to tell me?"
"Something that will rather surprise you, Basil: I have to tell you to leave London at once! Leave it for your own interests and for everybody else's. My father has found out that Clara has been to see you."
"Good heavens! how?"
"He won't tell me. But he has found it out. You know how you stand in his opinion--I leave you to imagine what he thinks of Clara's conduct in coming here."
"No! no! tell me yourself, Ralph--tell me how she bears his displeasure!"
"As badly as possible. After having forbidden her ever to enter this house again, he now only shows how he is offended, by his silence; and it is exactly that, of course, which distresses her. Between her notions of implicit obedience to him, and her opposite notions, just as strong, of her sisterly duties to you, she is made miserable from morning to night. What she will end in, if things go on like this, I am really afraid to think; and I'm not easily frightened, as you know. Now, Basil, listen to me: it is your business to stop this, and my business to tell you how."
"I will do anything you wish--anything for Clara's sake!"
"Then leave London; and so cut short the struggle between her duty and her inclination. If you don't, my father is quite capable of taking her at once into the country, though I know he has important business to keep him in London. Write a letter to her, saying that you have gone away for your health, for change of scene and peace of mind--gone away, in short, to come back better some day. Don't say where you're going, and don't tell me, for she is sure to ask, and sure to get it out of me if I know. Then she might be writing to you, and that might be found out, too. She can't distress herself about your absence, if you account for it properly, as she distresses herself now--that is one consideration. And you will serve your own interests, as well as Clara's, by going away--that is another."
"Never mind my interests. Clara! I can only think of Clara!"
"But you have interests, and you must think of them. I told my father of the death of that unhappy woman, and of your noble behaviour when she was dying. Don't interrupt me, Basil--it was noble; I couldn't have done what you did, I can tell you! I saw he was more struck by it than he was willing to confess. An impression has been made on him by the turn circumstances have taken. Only leave that impression to strengthen, and you're safe. But if you destroy it by staying here, after what has happened, and keeping Clara in this new dilemma--my dear fellow, you destroy your best chance! There is a sort of defiance of him in stopping; there is a downright concession to him in going away."
"I will go, Ralph; you have more than convinced me that I ought! I will go to-morrow, though where--"
"You have the rest of the day to think where. I should go abroad and amuse myself; but your ideas of amusement are, most likely, not mine. At any rate, wherever you go, I can always supply you with money, when you want it; you can write to me, after you have been away some little time, and I can write back, as soon as I have good news to tell you. Only stick to your present determination, Basil, and, I'll answer for it, you will be back in your own study at home, before you are many months older!"
"I will put it out of my power to fail in my resolution, by writing to Clara at once, and giving you the letter to place in her hands to-morrow evening, when I shall have left London some hours."
"That's right, Basil! that's acting and speaking like a man!"
I wrote immediately, accounting for my sudden absence as Ralph had advised me--wrote, with a heavy heart, all that I thought would be most reassuring and cheering to Clara; and then, without allowing myself time to hesitate or to think, gave the letter to my brother.
"She shall have it to-morrow night," he said, "and my father shall know why you have left town, at the same time.